The Trojans: An experiment in friendship or the harsh realities of so-called friendships.

The Trojans, in my sense of the word, refers to a group of Lembaga Letrik Negara (LLN or National Electricity Board) scholars who attended the Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) in Troy, New York, U.S.A. in the early 1980s. We were among the first batch of LLN-sponsored students who were sent to pursue engineering degrees at U.S. colleges. Brighton in the U.K. had been the "traditional" place where LLN sent its students for engineering degrees before LLN turned its sight to the U.S. Another Malaysian student (not LLN scholar) later joined the LLN students at HVCC but I still included him among the Trojans.

Being the first few Malays to attend a college in New York where the temperature could plummet to sub-zero degrees made the Trojans form a close-knit family-like relationship or friendship while studying at HVCC. Most of us lived together in a rented house during the early period of our stay in the U.S. Two of us (including me) had to stay in a separate house because of insufficient space in the first house. However we maintained a close contact by frequently visiting the larger group and having get-togethers whenever we could aside from bumping into each other and attending the same classes at the college. 

The Trojans were blessed with getting acquainted with a few senior Malaysian students (and their families) who were already pursuing (higher) degrees at nearby colleges at the time the Trojans landed in the U.S. Again, it was a close-knit friendship fostered by many social gatherings, visits and a picnic in the woods.

As events turned out, one of the Trojans, AL, had to leave the U.S. in the first or second year without completing his studies because of an offense that he allegedly committed in Troy.  I did not see him again for nearly 30 years since he left the U.S. As for the rest of the Trojans, after three or four semesters of pre-college education at HVCC, they went their separate ways to attend the proper colleges or universities in the U.S.A. for first degrees in Mechanical Engineering. I went to the UM-Columbia (UMC) with my housemate right from the beginning, RE. Another Trojan, GH, later joined us at UMC and we lived together in a rented house near UMC. One Trojan, KS, went to the UW-Madison while the rest (AS, AT, SK and RY) attended the SUNY in Buffalo, New York. The non-LLN student, AA, went to the UW-Milwaukee.

Toward the end of our studies at UMC, hostility developed between me and RE and GH when it seemed to me that they were ignoring or bypassing me when making decisions that concerned the house where we lived (and paid rent) together especially when they wanted to bring in a new housemate without asking me. RE and GH also appeared to be doing things together without asking me to join them. I must admit that I was not much of an outdoor person then nor was I easy to make friends but there has to be an unwritten and unspoken social contract among people who live together under one roof; and the social contract has to be respected by everybody under that roof when making decisions that could affect each person concerned.

From my point of view, it looked like the buds of bigotry and perhaps, cronyism too, were already growing in the heads of the Trojans back then in the U.S. On the other hand, I was no angel either because I was harboring envy in my mind for years because my housemate had a lot of "girlfriends" with whom he was often "crooning" late at night when I was trying to sleep. He even "stole" a junior student whom I had the heart for. My housemate also had a way of currying favor with the seniors and the rest of the Trojans because of his talkative and cajoling nature and a charming personality. I was and still am the aloof and emotional type—my personality and physique would simply put other people off after a few words of conversation. But hey, I'm only a human being created by God according to his "mysterious ways"! So don't blame me for my negative attitude toward life.

Upon returning from the U.S., RE, GH and me kept seeing each other frequently for several years when we were posted to the same power plant. RE later went to further his studies for a Masters degree and resigned from TNB to join another large corporation soon after getting his degree. I met AS and AT several times during the course of our jobs since we all had to work for LLN (which later became TNB) upon completing our studies. I must have met RY only a couple of times back here in Malaysia. I bumped into KS only once before he went to further his studies up to the doctorate level and quit LLN to become a lecturer at UKM. It was only last year when I met KS again when he came to a dinner to which I treated several of the Trojans. I probably saw SK a couple of times during the course of work and I did not meet AA and AL again until my "troubles" (it reminds me of the television series "Haven") began.

My "troubles" started after I resigned from TNB, the company where I worked for more than two decades after completing my studies in the U.S. During the whole period that I was with TNB, I worked at only one location i.e. the Kapar Power Plant. For nearly half of that period, I was assigned to shift work. While RE and GH were made to experience shift work at the beginning of their careers in TNB, I was sent to "suffer" shift work years later after RE and GH came out of shift work. I was clocking in for work at midnights when RE left the power plant to pursue further studies. When RE left, it was a low point in my life because I would have wanted to go for further studies too if I was qualified and had self-confidence. Nobody can imagine the depressive feeling that I had when my ex-housemate and ex-college mate of more than four years was going to "enjoy" life overseas (again) with his family while I was "rotting away" in shift work. I guess the "troubles" were already budding right then.

It must be depression that I had during those years of working in shifts to the extent of having suicidal thoughts. I knew that I was being "abandoned" by the power plant and TNB managements but my low self-esteem prevented me from escaping the "cocoon" that had built itself around myself over the years. After seven years of doing shift work, I was taken out and assigned to handle a new phase of the power plant. However, after a disastrous period of handling the new job, I was sent back to do shift work. It was during the second time in shift work that I started thinking of quitting my job even without a proper backup plan. Finally I threw caution to the wind and resigned from TNB eight years ago; and the "troubles" started.

The "troubles" were actually my inability to find a new job or to start a business because of my low self-confidence, lack of skills, and awkwardness when dealing with people. A bad memory and a less than average physique had something to do with it. Because I did not have a large network of friends, I had to rely on the Trojans, especially RE, in order to get jobs. Even then, my jobs after TNB did not last long—the last job was gone after being stabbed in the back by a former colleague in TNB. A couple of years after resigning from TNB, I had to "beg" for loans from my Trojan friends and relatives in order to put food on the table for my family. I was not asking for handouts but I really could not bring myself to earn a living.

During the troubled period of my life, RE helped me get a job a couple of times but both jobs were short-lived due to my lack of skills. AL tried to get me a job interview but I had to reject because of logistical problems and because I was scared of interviews. RY once called me out of the blue and just sort of invited me to work with him in getting contracts from TNB but the job never materialized. AT and AA came to see me one night with only suggestions of jobs that would suit me such as a security guard (Really?) and doing tuition for school students (if only I had the skills for teaching and interacting). AS's only assistance to me was a suggestion that I went to a "Majlis Zakat" to get a handout in order to settle some of my debts. In the five-year troubled period of my life, I accumulated debts totaling more than RM50,000 from relatives and friends only and not including unsettled credit card debts. My last job was working with a "friend" (an ex-TNB colleague) who invited me to work with him and then stabbed me in the back; but that is another story.

The point that I'm making here is that no matter how close a friend is, he will never really help you get back on your feet during troubled times. Perhaps he will lend you money but he will never understand the agony that you are going through in your life. My Trojan friends never made any real effort to understand my feelings and emotions of being unable to work or to do business. Despite countless times of pouring my thoughts and emotions to them, most of them just kept silent and away from me. Their silence was deafening to me. Nobody wanted to try to put himself in my shoes or to get into my head. Perhaps they were all expecting that if somebody else could do it, I should be able to do it without understanding my feelings and shortcomings.

I'm beginning to think that the people that I call my Trojan friends have no feelings and emotions. Perhaps being high up in social standing robbed them of empathy. It appears that having a 5-digit salary, a fat bank account, a luxury car, and an enormous house had the effect of doing just that and making them complacent. I should add a Datukship to the list of worldly possessions. Worse still, they mock me with their silence and inaction despite being fully aware of my condition and situation. KS promised to send me an application form that never came. RY was uncouth and arrogant by calling me again by a nickname which I had already made it clear to them that I didn't want them to use it anymore. The worst thing is, they make me harbor the green-eyed monster called envy in my heart—as well as hatred, prejudice, anger...

"What are friends for?" and "A friend in need is a friend indeed.", the cliches go. I would like to answer the first one with this: Friends are just for laughing and for comparing who have the largest tummies! As for the second cliche, I would like to rephrase it as follows: A friend in trouble is a friend no more! It doesn't rhyme quite right but it will do.

Finally, this posting has pretty much summed up what I think about my Trojan friends. I guess I'll end it with a short prayer for my Trojan friends though I don't believe it will make any difference:

May God bless my Trojan friends in this world and their souls in the hereafter! Amen!

"Till death do us wake up from our slumber!"

The Trojans in New York circa 1981.