“Ji, sapa doh koh paypoh hagi ni?” (Haji, has today’s newspaper arrived yet?)
“Dok.” (No.)
Almost every morning, I would run back and forth to the newspaper vendor whose small wooden shop stood among a row of government-built outlets opposite our shophouse. Back then, newspapers only reached Kota Baru town around 10am, sometimes even mid-afternoon due to logistical constraints.
During the monsoon season, shipments were often stranded halfway by floods, and we ended up reading newspapers that were already a week old.
Every two months, my visits grew even more frequent whenever Gila-Gila magazine was due to hit the shelves.
Eventually, bogged down by my endless enquiries, the vendor, a pakcik, would grumble in his classic Kelantanese dialect, “Begak cik abeh ni, brapo kali doh nok goyak? Lori tok sapa lagi, jangeh cokoh sini gak.” (Such a nuisance this little brother. How many times must I tell you? The truck hasn’t arrived yet, so stop hanging out here.)
But on days when he was in a better mood, he would hand me a stack of old comics, pull out a low rattan chair, and the two of us would sit together at the five foot way, waiting for the truck to finally reach town.
Those were the days when we read news by flipping through pages after pages of newsprint.
At times, our fingers would be stained by the newspaper ink, while the scent of freshly delivered papers somehow carried a strange sense of excitement and comfort.
News was not something that arrived instantly on a glowing screen; it was something we waited for, anticipated and shared together.
Those were also the days when human interactions felt warmer and closer, when people seemed to live on the same wavelength over common issues and daily conversations.
A newspaper was more than just printed pages, it connected people, and gave a small town something collective to look forward to each day.
