KL...My Identity

I caught up with some old friends from my previous work place recently and we couldn't help but notice how our conversations have changed over the years. Back then, when we were all single and fairly fresh around the gills, it was about what we would do in the future, bitching about the bosses, politics and checking out girls over teh tarik...just shooting the breeze. With most of us now married with kids, the conversations have gone to breast pumps (single vs double, power output etc), lactation (heavy flow or dripping), cradling techniques (shoulder vs chest), formula milk (brands and pricing) and sex (the lack of it that is). How times have changed.

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I love to drive around KL (non peak hours or weekends only of course), using routes that I am familiar with and sometimes even driving into unexplored areas to see where it leads me to. I have been living in KL for most of my teen and adult life, have experienced the myriad ways of getting around KL (when mini buses in different colors were in vogue) and have fond memories of various places, eateries, malls, shops, hideouts and even pathways. While it is a rare occasion for me to be walking around KL nowadays, my drives around KL, in the comfort of my Japanese tin can does elicit a sense of deja-vu and at different sights, sounds and even smells, I can almost transport myself back to those carefree days when I used to roam around KL with my buddies and ex'es; remembering the drink stall where we pit stopped on the way to the bus station, the uncle that used to sell traditional chinese candies, the makcik frying rancid smelling keropok lekor and the rempit baskers crooning old-school malay and english rock songs. KL has definitely changed since then with the sky scrapers, new watering holes, ultra expensive condominiums and LRT/monorail lines snaking above. Some are good, some are bad and a lot of them are unnecessary. But there are still parts of KL that has remained relatively unchanged, providing glimpses of what it was, like a window to the past. I like these unchanging parts of KL, it is its identity, and while I look out of the window from Bankerland, I feel an affinity to it cause it is a microcosm of my past self which I can relate to...the rest, as the saying goes, no longer is...