My First TV Appearance

... was about seven years ago. The venue where the interview took place was at Petroliam Carigali, somewhere at the southern kingdom in which many dinosaurs slept but never wake up.

When I stepped into the air-conditioned lobby, one of the ladies who was in charge of welcoming the participants approached me and politely asked in her soft, heart-melting voice, "skews me adik, awak Sir Pok Deng ke?" (Excuse me, lil bro. Are ya Sir Pok Deng?). After introducing myself, she told me that I have been selected (randomly, I suppose) to be an interviewee who needs to say nice things about Petronas in front of the camera. The guy from RTM had been waiting earlier that morning, as she mentioned later. Indeed, I could see him sitting on a chair having a cuppa with a big black video camera placed beside him. He wore a sleeveless, oversize brown vest with a familiar logo at his chest pocket.

The lady, who smelled of talcum its brand name escaped me, gave me a piece of paper printed with list of questions that will be asked by the interviewer, like, how do I feel after being selected as Dungun's representative by the national petroleum company to watch Michael Schumacher steer his vehicle on Sepang's F1 race track. I said to myself, 'of course I'm happy', so I wrote that down at the back side of the paper she gave me soon after she excused herself to find another boys and girls to say nice things about Petronas.

Back in school three days later, with wonderful memories of witnessing white folks strolled half naked about Sepang International Circuit still fresh in mind, an ustaz called up my name when I was passing the canteen. I walked to him nervously as if I was doing anything wrong.

"Hey I saw you on TV yesterday!" he said. "How thick your Terengganu accent was you put shame on this school's name ha ha!"

I smiled and walked away leaving him make fun of my Terengganu accent with other boys listening.