APRIL 29 — When I was about five years old, I loved going to the playground behind our house. 

The neighbourhood kids would gather there every evening and play all kinds of games, from football, ice cream sticks to ram ram rep patung (remember this one?)! 

My favourite game back then was ice cream sticks. Two people would go head to head and blow their ice cream sticks so it would overlap the other to win. 

If you won, you would get to take the other person’s ice cream stick to add to your collection. The more you had, the higher your social status. 

The pressure was so intense that my friends and I would even resort to stealing each other’s sticks. And of course we would deny it when confronted. 

“Kau ambik batang ais krim aku!” 

“Mana ada!” 

“Ye! Kau tipu!” 

“Aku tak tipu lah! Sumpah!” 

“Tipu! Kau tak cakap sumpah betul-betul!” 

“Aku tak ambik! S… U… M… sum! P… A… H… pah! SUMPAH!” 

And with that, the argument has to be settled. There is nothing a person can say once the word SUMPAH has been uttered. And so began my obsession with that word. 

At around the same time, my friends and I were obsessed with the cartoon M.A.S.K. and we would all have our little action figures and superhero vehicles. 

The figurines had really small parts and would get lost easily. My Matt Tracker Thunderhawk lost both its tiny missiles within minutes of my parents buying it for me. 

So, I went to my friend’s house with my Thunderhawk in hand. He had one too, and so began my secret mission. 

(I shall not name him in case he decides to come search for me now that he’s all grown up!) 

As soon as he wasn’t looking, I snatched his Thunderhawk’s missiles away and put them in the slots of my own Thunderhawk. 

“Hey! Where are my missiles?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“You didn’t have missiles when you got here. Are those mine?” 

“No!” 

“Liar! Those are mine! You stole them!” 

“No! These are mine! S… U… M… sum! P… A… H… pah! SUMPAH!” 

And, as I had expected, that was the end of the argument. I loved the word! It was like a "get out of jail" card. You could not be accused of any wrong once you used that word. 

A few days later, I was watching television with my parents at home. There was nothing much to watch back then – only RTM. 

A Malay movie was on... something starring Jins Shamsuddin. It was titled Esok Untuk Siapa. I was really young then so I can’t really remember the whole story. 

But I did remember that in the end, one guy by the name of Jiman (played by Jins) ended up paralysed and insane due to a horrific accident with a timber lorry. 

I asked my mother what had happened to him, and she told me that this was what happened to people who lie and break promises and oaths (SUMPAH!). 

That scared the wits out of me. I did not want to end up crazy and in a wheelchair living amongst chickens underneath a kampung house like Jiman. 

And so I told myself that I would never use that magic word ever again, unless I was really telling the truth and meant what I said.