Where the Young Were : Progress and the Wandering 12 Year Old

I had gone down the steep road carefully. It had been roughly cut into the hillside, precariously meandering and in places like a big snake as the road extended into the lower grounds. It was just after 2 pm with the sun literally baking above.

Around the road were trees making up the encroaching jungle or rather in the words of my geography teacher back then – “Secondary Forest”. There had only been a few houses as I made my way down the road, until finally there were just trees and open land as I progressed further in. In one of the open areas, a man – by all indications a farmer was clearing his land with his 2 boys around my age. He was clearly surprised to see me and I stopped by to have a brief chat with him before resuming my objective ahead – a rather steep hill that led to somewhere I did not even know.

Welcome to the mind and compulsion of a 12 year old. I had just turned the big Twelve a few months earlier. Somehow it came with a growing restlessness which I then channeled into exploring my surroundings. That day’s agenda thus had been to explore an area near the place I was staying.

School had ended earlier at 12.30 in the afternoon. It was a new school and attending it meant being away from Mom and staying with my relatives. As an only child, I had never been away from her before this, and it had taken time for both of us to adjust to the new norm. Progress for me was adjusting to the demands of a very competitive academic environment, learning how to manage my time and being a brother to my cousins.

Progress was also something that I could compare in the town I was staying in. Bandar Seri Begawan or BSB for short was in a brisk state of development. It was 1984 and Brunei had just transitioned into an independent state after decades under the British administration. There were new administrative buildings, commercial complexes, and public areas being constructed and worked on by the day.

KB – my hometown which was 120 km away from BSB had been sleepier, more frontier like if not for its proximity to the oil and gas rigs and facilities. I had spent most of my life there and I had grown fond of its laid back atmosphere afforded by a close-knit community, grid like streets and picturesque houses as well as British designed apartments (flats as we called them). We get the occasional drunk or two back then and the related weekend car crash. Mom had seen her fair share of tragedy : she was a nurse in the emergency department of KB hospital.

One evening, the ambulances had brought in some teenagers who had been involved in a road accident. The driver had been drunk, driving his Honda Civic off from a bridge and into a river with 3 of his friends in the car. None had survived. One of them was my Korean cousin Azlina.

I had been quite close to her. Her father had migrated to Brunei and had set up shop in a place called Tunggulian. The Arirang grocery store was their family’s. It was situated on a hill close to their family home and their chicken farm. I would frequent their place, marveling at the view of the hills whilst having a home made ice cream given to me by Azlina.

Azlina’s passing taught me about death … and resilience. I could see how her family was affected by her absence. Grief took time to heal. But it also brought everyone closer and the courage to move on.

Moving on was also something that Mom and me had been progressing with that year. The new norm for us had been coping with life after Dad. It had meant coming home to a house of full of memories, juggling work and school and dealing with things as they come – fairly routine. Now that I was attending a new school and away from her, the telephone became our life-line. We would keep each other updated regularly. We would mostly talk about mundane things like food, schoolwork and what we did daily. That was the focus. That was progress.

Progress was also in my mind as I climbed up the steep road that afternoon in BSB. I was wandering – for want of a better word. The countryside was around me and I wondered where the road was leading me to.

It was definitely unfamiliar territory. The farm where I had chatted earlier with the man looked small in the distance. I imagined Mom would have been upset that I had gone on alone, without telling anyone. Still, as progress went – there were still quite a few places in Brunei that you could term as “behind in progress” back then. These natural enclaves of secondary forests had a rudimentary network of unsurfaced roads or trails that allowed some basic transportation access but nothing more. That had suited me just fine. I had found solace in the relative remoteness of the area. Also, the sound of the cicadas around me had been warmly cathartic.

I found a high point, sat and looked at the world around me, feeling connected to the land and very much removed from the noisy crowd. In the relative remoteness of the area, I felt my mind clearing. I was hot and sweaty. My shirt – slightly large on me felt sticky in the humid Brunei air. Instead of shorts, I had trousers on which also made the day feel a lot warmer than it should.

That day I would return home just before nighttime. The fact that I had been alone during the exploration bothered me in the very least. I had brought no provisions or water with me. No backpacks. Mobile phones too were years into the future. If there were a mishap, I would really have been in a fix as no one except the man clearing the land would know that I had been in the area. There had also been no worrying about snakes or animal encounters. I was blissfully unaware. It had just been me, the road, the forest and the hills.

I took a drive in the area recently. It had been quite some time since that afternoon so long ago. The farm was now gone, the rudimentary road that I had walked on as a kid had been widened and surfaced. The area was now a host to a slew of high density housing. Progress it seemed had finally caught up.

I felt a bit lost : there were newer roads as well connected to the main road. I parked my car to the side of the road I was on and switched on Google Map on my smart phone. The loaded imagery hit my eyes rudely – there was no semblance to the place I was used to as a kid. The housing development was in all shapes and sizes with houses cutting into the forest or what was left of it, left and right.

I looked around in front of me and spotted that high point I used to sit on as a child. It was still there but barely. The widened road had almost cut into it. I could almost imagine seeing the younger version of myself sitting there still as the world continued its forward onslaught.

I shook my head and laughed it off. That would have been too sad. The kid too was now gone.

We have no control over progress. We just have to take a step at a time, and go with the flow and roll with the punches, and deal with it. That is what life is all about. Sure, you can take momentary trips down memory lane to reflect, as it is good to keep track of your own progress – to know where you have been, to see where you are currently at, and to plan where you are heading. But at the end of the day, it is time to go home.

I looked into my rear view mirror to make sure there were no cars behind me. Then I turned on the signal indicator and pressed on the gas pedal.

It was approaching night time.

Mom, Mona and the kids were waiting at home.