A LOVE LESS ORDINARY
Three couples share with us their extraordinary and heartwarming
tales of love and romance.
TEXT TAN LEE KUEN & SHANTI GANESAN
STRAIGHT OUT OF THE MOVIES
Meor Azman, 47
I was divorced for 6 years. My mother thought it
was inappropriate for a young Malay man not to
be married and kept harassing me about it daily.
I was quite ready to remain single. One night, she
read me the riot act about not being married. As
it so happened, Sofia was on television, on Hawa.
As my mother was telling me about her friends
with pretty daughters, I said, “Ok, if you want me
to marry, get me someone like her” and I pointed
to Sofia on TV. I didn’t really know who she was
but she was exceptionally beautiful. I didn’t think
too much about it although I did ask my friends
about her.
Sofia Jane, 37
I was 23 and shooting for the drama series I
was doing with Harith Iskandar and Hans Isaac. Coincidentally, the house I was shooting at
belonged to Azman’s aunt. Next thing I knew, his
mom came on set, talked to me and asked a lot of
questions like, “What’s it like working? Are you
lonely? Do you have a boyfriend?” The sisters
would all sit with me on the balcony in between
shoots and scuttle upstairs later like they were
having a big meeting. It was a little odd but I didn’t
think too much of it. One day, his mother declared,
“I have a son, he is very handsome.” I was taken
aback but curious. She is very beautiful herself, so
what must her son look like? At that time I wasn’t
thinking about marriage, more about my career, so
I didn’t give it much thought.
BY YOUR SIDE
“It is not often that we get to be with our loved ones at the
very moment of their darkest hour. For George Ang, it was
chance that brought Molly to his side when he needed her
most. Meeting up with the Angs for their story, they displayed
the easy-going charm of a comfortable couple, quiet in their
affection for each other.
Their story began with unrequited infatuation. George and
Molly shared a tuition class in Melaka when they were 15.
George, having a crush on Molly, used to tail her home from
class, too abashed to speak to her. Molly, in turn, took fright
at his mute affections, and stopped going for classes. Their
story would have ended there if Molly had not paid George a
surprise visit one fine Christmas Day in Kuala Lumpur. “It was
the first time we really had a chat and we got along really well,”
remembers Molly. Several months, bus rides and long chats later,
George asked Molly to go steady with him. “Our first proper date
was in The Mall,” remembers Molly. “We sat on a bench and
spent hours just talking.”
RUNAWAY COUPLE
Being married for 35 years isn’t a walk in the park. But people
were raised differently back then. So different were their views
that being the same race, religion and even caste wasn’t enough to
be blessed in marriage by their families. So when Rani fell in love
with Ganesan more than three decades ago, she knew she had to
make it work no matter what she was up against. Otherwise it
would not have been worth the biggest battle of her life.
Coming from a Tamil Ceylonese, Hindu family, Rani was
certain she would be a ‘good’ daughter and marry the man of
her parents’ choice. Her family was middle class and they lived
quite comfortably in Petaling Jaya. “I was close to everyone in my
family and spent a lot of time with them. They were my world…
my everything,” she says.
When she was about to start work in the Ministry of Defence,
her mother took her aside and warned her that there was
someone called Ganesan from Sentul working there and not
to get too close to him. The Ceylonese community was pretty
small and everyone knew (or knew of) everyone. Needless to say,
everyone knew Ganesan was quite a thug in his younger days.
Not many knew though that he had turned a new leaf after losing
his mother to cancer and his father fell ill. Either way, it didn’t
matter because once your name was tarnished in the Ceylonese
community then, you were labelled for life.
|
