Cheek Me

The following entry explains the meaning of Koya. Is Hilmi a koya man? You decide. 

 

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Koya – a Kelantanese derogatory term to describe a person who has insensible, unrealistic, nonsensical yet romantic ideas about stuff in life. It might come from an Arabic word Khayal, meaning preoccupation and intoxication. The closest Malay equivalence should be Perasan or Berangan.

 

In Kelantan, when a person says, “Koya nyo mung nih!”, it is always said with slight contempt and dismissal (though some might say it in a subtle, polite and joking manner). Anyway, my little sister always claims that I am a koya person, which hurts me a little. But I suspect, she’s always been right about me. I have in fact always been a koya man, being surrounded by novel ideas from dry books and pathetic love songs, being driven by cloudy mindsets because of too much involvement with handsome lakes and pretty Mother nature, and being alone with stupid ideas most of the time. 

 

Standing in the middle of the road and staring blankly at these sad, dead, dry leaves, I have to admit that I’m really a koya fool. If not, I wouldn’t be here now on a foreign land. Doing my lunatic PhD.