Rossa Gave Me a Kiss!

Most International Baccalaureate (IB) graduates would agree that one of the most stressful times of their life was during their 2-years of IB. Stressful IB students, as I am back then, would do strange things just to take some load off our minds. For us, the IB boys of MARA College Seremban, we had an odd way of releasing stress: dancing! We would secretly download video clips with a dancing scene, and we would just dance to it. Most dancers enjoy the dancing itself, but for us, we just enjoy laughing at each other's hilarious move. Totally works on releasing stress!

That was when I saw Rossa for the first time in my life. She was on the screen of my friend’s PC, dancing to her chart-topping song back then: ‘Pudar’. “She’s drop-dead gorgeous!” my friend would say, and I would definitely agree. We were so obsessed with her dance that we completely memorized the dancing steps! Once, while we did a motivation program for high-school students, we even did the dance in front of the students. Crazy as we were, we survived the 2 years of IB. Soon after graduating, I made a decision to go separate way from my friends and study medicine in Indonesia. I made the decision based on many reasons, but none of them include meeting Rossa (Indonesia is her homeland). By that time, I forgot all about Rossa.

That was till 2 years later, when Rossa came back into my mind. I was having lunch with a friend at the time. “Guess what, I have a date tonight!” said my friend. “Wow…With whom?” I asked. “Ehem…a celebrity”. “What? Cool…which celebrity?!”. To tell the truth, I was expecting a name that I didn't recognize, because in Indonesia, they have lots and lots of talented celebrities that I can’t even catch up with their names! But I was wrong when she answered:

“Rossa”

It took me awhile to digest it, and the first vision that came into my mind was a dancing scene from Pudar video, and us, the boys of IB, dancing along with her. ‘How in the world could my friend here get to date with Rossa?’ I thought. I was soon told that she entered a magazine contest, and as a grand prize, she won a date with Rossa! I thought this would be the chance for me to see her in real life, so I decided to tag along with her to the restaurant where she was supposed 'date' Rossa. I didn’t mind waiting outside, my plan was just to see her in real life, probably while she was walking out the door, escorted by the bodyguards to her car.

So I was waiting outside when the main door opens. I was half-expecting Rossa to come out, but it was actually my friend. “Come on in, the photo shoot is getting started” she shouted.“Come in? Am I allowed to?”. “It’s okay, I even told Rossa about you memorizing the Pudar dance”. “Whaaat? How did she responded?” I asked. “Well, she was not quite surprised at first. But when I told her you are a guy, she was like: Yang bener?! (are you kidding?!)”.

Excited, I went inside to meet Rossa in person for the first time in my life. She was smaller than I expected. Maybe because most of the celebrities I met in real life are tall. Rossa is just a cute and tiny, but she’s beautiful the way she is. She may be small, but when she starts to sing, she’s larger than the world. So as a prize for memorizing the steps of ‘Pudar’, I got myself a kiss from Rossa. Okay, not a real kiss, but a kiss on a paper:

Dear Lutfi, love, Rossa