Road Trip 2009

Sedar tak sedar we’ll be turning thirty next year (Ali tahun ni ek… bday joki kuda padi tu dah lepas ke?) Anyways, terbaca kat dalam shoutbox tadi, it seems everyone remembers those plans to go on that road trip we used to talk about. The road trip that sounded so bad ass but in the end, was the road trip that never was...



Dulu, road trip tu kita anggap as a rite of passage.



Maklum la, culture kita skang mana ada rite of passage yang formal untuk budak lelaki. Paling-paling pun sunat, itu pun la ni newborn pun leh sunat, cam anak Otai.



Mungkin idea road trip ni datang dari influence tengok movie ke, from a book, I don’t really remember.



Yang aku ingat, I was serious about it. And I think Penan was too. Cuma susah nak lock commitment semua orang. And aku paham. Lepas SPM, semua orang ikut hala masing2. Busy study. Busy bertenet. Duit tarak. Pas tu lak busy carik keje.



Busy struggle nak survive from paycheque to paycheque. Busy tenet lagi. Busy bikin kereta. Busy layan sungai. Busy photog. Busy tenet lagi sekali. Busy nak tunang. Busy nak kahwin. Busy nak sambut anak…



So is a rite of passage still relevant?



I read somewhere that there is actually an anthropological formula that underlies all rites of passage ceremonies. Formula tu cakap ada tiga elemen utama yang serupa in most cultures.



1) An end – this is where kita cut off ikatan childhood



2) A middle – the ritual itself



3) A beginning – transformation to manhood

Pelik dak? Dalam kata lain, depa ni are really saying that a rite of passage begins with an ending and ends with a beginning.



Most of us dah kahwin, ada yang dah anak dua dah pun. So rasanya the severance from childhood part tu dah taken care of. But even then tak leh nak cakap gak hehehe…



Anyways, now comes the much belated second step; the formal ritual itself. I don’t feel like having my balls gnawed on by a mountain goat and walking on red hot coals doesn’t sound too pleasant. A road trip, a REAL road trip, sounds good to me.



My suggestion, we block off the last week of November 2009. Somewhere in there boys, are 3 days and 2 nights that we’ll really remember.



Something we can tell our grandkids.



Or maybe not.

So maybe, just maybe, if we commit, plan ahead, start setting aside a couple of bucks each month, slow talk dengan pasangan masing2, maklumkan boss masing2 in due time, maybe just maybe, that road trip that we shelved in the past, long forgotten among worn out school shoes and tattered porn mags, dusty electric guitars and old mixtapes, will have its long overdue day in the sun.