REMEMBERANCE 90: DOWN DURIAN LANE

Din was my classmate in the Religious class at Sekolah Melayu Padang Perahu in the late fifties and I have not met him since then. Surprisingly, I bumped into him when I wanted to buy a cempedak fruit from the fruit stall in front of the Jitra Hostpital on Saturday 16th. July 2011. It turned out that Din was the owner of the stall and when I descended from my car, Din gasped asking me whether I was really Pak Tuan Syed Zain, his school mate. When I affirmed that it was really me kicking and still alive. The he just hugged me reminiscing of our missing years. As a farewell gift, he even presented Zam with a good quality cempedak as a remembrance of our friendship that has gone missing for 50 years.

The fruit stall owned by Din

Cempedak of friendship

KACANG HIJAU THE LONE SURVIVOUR

DURIAN KACANG HIJAU

Lot 360 at Kampung Kelubi is the hereditary land of my paternal grand mother, the late Ku Puteh bin Ku Saad. The land was bequeathed to her together with her two older sisters Ku Minah and Ku Jiwa. On my late grand mother’s share of the land which is adjacent to Lot 361, apart from the other fruit trees such as rambutan and jack fruits, there were three distinct durian trees which bore three different types of durian species.

I will be touching 65 years of age in August 2011 but as far as I could remember, the three durian trees were already old trees that has reached their peaks of growth. In the late fifties onward, if ever our school holidays coincided with the annual fruiting seasons, my cousins and I would merrily flocked down to Kelubi. We would be picking up the ripe fruits as much as we wish. However the grand finale of the enjoyment of the fruiting season would surely be the experience of picking up the durian fruits in the pitch of the nights during our stay at our grand parent's house.

According to my own judgment that was also verified by the other cousins, the best grade durian was the definitely of the Jantung species. Jantung durians were bigger in size and in the shape of the heart. Secondly followed by the Kepala Gajah species which were a little bit smaller in size than the Jantung but there were instead in the shape of elephants' heads. Lastly it was the Kacang Hijau species which were the smallest in size but with a very greenish in colour of the skins likened to the green peas. That were the logical reasons how the three type of durian species ended with the glamourous names.

As we were always spending our nights at Kelubi during the fruiting seasons, we could even recognise the different sounds of the falling durians during the night. Jantung would surely be the loudest because of its sheer size while Kacang Hijau would have lesser decibel than the Jantung or Kepala Gajah. Naturally enough, we would clamour for the sound of the Jantung durians. Those who were wide awake has an advantage over those who were in deep sleep through out the night. At the rumbling sounds of the fallen Jantung, those who were awake would rush out and they would finished off the durians on the spots before the heavy sleepers would even realise it the next morning.

For me, who has abstained from consuming durians for the last eight years, I did not even visit the three durian trees in Kelubi during those periods. I did so because I was afraid that the visit might increase my temptation of consuming durians again. Apart from that, it would also bring back nostalgic memories that we used to share among the cousins. Nowadays the level of closeness among the family members has deteriorated tremendously among the fourth generation Kelubians. I sincerely pray to Allah that our relationship among the family members would be glued stronger if ever we could organize another scheduled family gatherings among the fourth and fifth generation of Kelubians.

However on the 3rd. July 2011, as the result of a strong insistence from Chin who begged me to think more about the needs of Zam and the children, finally Zam and I went back to Kelubi. By the time we arrived at Kelubi in the late evening, Chin has already packed for me a sackful of durians of the Kacang Hijau species. When I enquired Chin about the other species, Chin told me that the Jantung and Kepala Gajah species has met their demise a few years ago. The demise of Jantung was because of aging whereas the demise of Kepala Gajah was because of the unscrupulous clearing of the land adjacent to the tree by our neighbours in Lot 361.

The failure of the fourth generation Kelubians to protect and maintain the sustainability of the fruit trees has a direct impact on the fifth and sixth generations of Kelubians. As such, I really felt deep remorse for failing to pass down the pleasure on enjoying the fantastic tastes of the two mighty durians of Jantung and Kepala Gajah to my children and grand children. With that sad episode , the pleasure of waiting for the falling sounds of the two mighty durian fruits remains just a pleasant memory among our fourth generation Kelubians which cannot be shared physically with our younger generation of Kelubians as the mighty Jantungs and Kepala Gajahs has gone forever.