A Dream Lost

something I wrote in 2000, based on a real local Tamil School in Subang. Residents help the students move as several classrooms, including the HM's office have caved-in. The students have since moved back and things are back to "normal". Enjoy and reflect...kv


Raju (not his real name) was a Standard Six student in a Tamil Primary school in the outskirts of a rapidly expanding commercial township. He was a good runner and he especially enjoyed the sprint events. His dream was to one day become the fastest person in Malaysia - breaking Dr Jegathesan's decades old record. During the evenings after school, he could be seen running in a pair of yellow spiked shoes that[sic] his uncle had bought him. They were his prized possession.

The school field had a six-lane running track. Although it was just a grass surface, it did not matter to Raju, for he felt free and strong running with the sound of the wind whisking behind him. Raju also knew that if he practiced well and studied hard, he would one day be recognized and respected in society. His illiterate parents would be proud of him.

Things went on as usual until one day, an unusual announcement was made by the headmaster during the school assembly that the school had to be relocated to make way for a housing project and that the developer had agreed to compensate the school by providing a piece of land equal in size with their current school and a new school be built on that promised land in a better location. There was great excitement in the air as the children envisioned their new school. Raju's face lighted up as he thought about the new school, "A new school..., a new field.... a new life!" Raju was even more determined to train harder. "I will be faster than Dr. Jega one day", he thought.

The much-awaited day finally came and as the children eagerly entered the new school building, Raju was the first to head for the running track. But he was to receive a rude shock when all he could find was a small piece of land sandwiched between a monsoon drain and a construction site. The "field" was not even large enough for a full track!

"How am I going to train....? How can I now be the fastest person in Malaysia?". Thoughts of despair loomed over Raju as he dragged his feet to his new classroom, which to him was not unlike his former school's except that this one had a functional fan. His heart was really at the running tracks where he could almost fly like a bird. Without this drive, he was not the same Raju as before - the Raju who walked with a sprint and talked of his dream. Now, Raju walked as if with chained legs and spoke little. More often than not, he got reprimanded for day-dreaming at his classroom window.

How he longed to run again. It was not the same running on small playgrounds or fume-choked roads. Only a true runner could understand his feelings, and none of his friends were as close to being as passionate as he was in running.

One day, while Raju was walking to the canteen, he tripped over a cement block and injured his ankle. It was not good at all. Firstly he could not run, now he injured his ankle. The uncanny thing was that he was quite sure the cement block was not there the day before. When this matter was reported to the headmaster, he quickly inspected the site and discovered that the floor had actually sunk! The headmaster had initially thought that it could have been due to the heavy downpour the evening before. He called the developer to repair the damage. The workers came and did just that - they filled up the hole without finding out the cause for the sinking. The following week, even more cracks and holes appeared. The more the workers tried to fill up the holes, the more parts of the building began to sink.

Finally one day, the developers came in full force and dug up the entire cement flooring, and replaced it with inter-locking tiles and covered it with carpets. They were quite sure that that would do the trick. Raju was trying to make sense out of the whole thing. Firstly, he 'lost' his running track, now his school was 'sinking'.

One day when the workers from the developers were working, Raju over-heard several of them having a conversation. They were talking about the school and one of them said, ".....don't bother......just fill it up-lah - it is ONLY a Tamil school...". This made him feel very, very sad.

It was not until several months later that the headmaster made an announcement that the school was no more safe and would be evacuated as soon as possible. A temporary school was found with the help of several community leaders. The students were to be housed at the temporary school building until the authorities decide what would happen next. No plans was announced.

On the day before they moved again, Raju stood at the gates of the school clutching his pair of spike shoes in a plastic bag, unused for the past few months and wondered if he would get a chance to run again in the other new school, and whether there would be a field with tracks at all there. This time, however, Raju was not excited. As he stood at the school gate school waiting for his school-bus to pick him up from there one last time, he gazed over to the other side of the fence to the almost completed structure which, he was told, would be a brand new "smart school". It would have many classrooms, air-conditioning and above-all, a large field with a running track. When Raju asked this teacher why he could not study there or run in that field, his teacher, loss for words, shook his head in a silence.

When the school bus finally arrived, he dragged himself reluctantly onto the bus which left the building for the last time. Behind him at the gate was a plastic bag. It contained a pair of yellow spike shoes and a lost dream of a young man.

April 11, 2000

K V Soon