On each Vesak Day, I remember and think of my good friend Lian Lee. She is a devout Buddhist and has been so since BPS days. I am certain she was amongst those thousands of Buddhists who celebrated Vesak Day yesterday.
LL and I have been classmates since P2 in BPS. Our group of girl-friends from the class used to go to her house in Bunga Rampai Place in the afternoons to 'revise our work'. Her parents and home-army of aunties always welcomed us and would generously serve us drinks and snacks. :)
LL was a feather-weight sprinter. She always represented our class in the BPS Sports Day and won many trophies for the tracks events. She also played the piano very well.
Even though LL and I 'compared' each other's school work and results a lot (she almost always scored the 2nd highest in tests etc), it was a friendly and healthy kind of competition between ourselves; there was never the 'die-die-also-must-beat-you' type of rivalry which seems to prevail in schools and at the workplace these days, between us.
We also shared the common experience joining the band in BPS, attempting to run away from it and then finally re-joining it after we were both sheepishly 'hauled up' by the band instructor.
In P6, LL and I both chose to go to Cedar Girls' but we were both unsuccessful - how ironical, considering that we did well in our PSLE, hor. Nevertheless, we ended up together in TKGS because of the Music Elective Programme (MEP). Then, somehow, we ended up joining the same school band (ha?! again?! ya, that's right!). Hahhaha.....
After 'O' levels, LL and I went to the same junior college. We took the same subject combination. Also, we joined the same band - only that this time, she was an unwilling member but because there was pressure from the school for students 'with band experience' to join the school band, she had had no choice but to attend the band practices etc.
Given our long-standing friendship, many people expected LL and I to be 'going everywhere and doing everything' together type of girl-friends. But strangely enough, we were never like that.
Our friendship was more like what Confucius called '君子之交淡如水' = Great friendship is really like plain water - essential and sustainable. Don't understand how plain water can be analogy of great friendship? Just contrast plain water with those fanciful & sweetened aerated drinks - which would we drink more and drink more consistently?
But alas, the last time LL and I spoke was almost a decade ago. I wonder how she is and what she is doing now. Perhaps I should do more to try to contact her and renew our long-paused friendship.
Happy Vesak Day.
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