Home Coming - Eid Mubarak - Part III

Events on 1 - 5 October in a flashback...........

Buyung, my elder brother-in-law, celebrated raya in Sibu, Sarawak this year with his wife's family. He had been the one to rush me to the mosque in Taman Anggerik for sembahyang raya. So this year, I asked Hadiff to come with me to perform the prayer. He agreed. We woke up and got ready. Hadiff took longer time to get his body wiped up dry, spend some time to look for bedak, butang baju melayu and he kept on adjusting his tiny samping. We reached the mosque at 8:38AM, and the jemaah had completed their 2 rakaats. I blamed Hadiff. He said, "Kita kena pegi awal tahun depan, tau, papa".

The morning raya breakfast was excellent. I helped myself for a second round of ketupat, rendang and sambal udang. The sambal udang was the greatest.

We got ourselves ready to go to Singapore. Then I came to know that my wife didn't bring her passport. She grabbed 3 passports into her handbag. One was Hadiff's, one was Aimi's and the last one was Aimi's old passport with the v-cut that my wife didn't realized. After her recent trip to Shanghai, she had separated her passport from the kids. She felt so bad that it's ruined her first raya. So we were not really having the mood to pose with our baju raya for the first raya -which was supposed to be the purple match for the 4 of us.

The 3 of us headed to Singapore via the second link. At the Malaysian immigration booth, the officer told me that Hadiff couldn't leave the country, because his passport was expiring in a month time. I reasoned that he still have a month and I'm not aware of the new ruling. I remembered many similar instances before, but my other family members and I were still allowed to cross the border. After all, I told him that I reside in Dubai and might have missed the grand notice of changes in the immigration rulings. After all, it's just a short trip. We would be back the next day. After all, it's raya. He told me it's the system that disabled him to do anything as it would block Hadiff's data entry. I told him I would not reverse my car to make a U-turn. I would see who ever there was to see, to allow me to move southward. After all, the passport evidently said that Hadiff had another month before the expiry date and at the point of time, there was no visible evidence or notice declaring those with passport validity of 1 month or less should not be allowed to leave the country. I could reason like these only in JB for I know if I'd be in trouble, my father-in-law, the JB taiko besar, would come to rescue us. The officer finally told me that he would assist me to by-pass the system if I handed over duit raya in the passport. I place a RM50 in Hadiff passport and off we went. I know what I did was feeding the parasites in our colony, but I had to get going. I thought Pak Lah had sorted this thing out about bersih, cekap, amanah among the government servants.......

We had another checkpoint to pass through. It was a kiasu checkpoint that took us 3 hours to get through. Yet, we always relate Singapore to high efficiency. I wasn't really sure what happened. There was a huge numbers of cars but the Malaysian checkpoint handled them way faster even with the additional process of duit raya collection if there were many instances like we had experienced. There were many counters open but many cars stopped for registeration updates, issuance of new entry cards, etc. There were security checks but they didn't stop and check our car for long.

Hadiff and Aimi slept the whole 3-hour stretch, which was a good thing. Otherwise it would be tougher, if I were to handle them, the immigration officers, the traffic and all, by myself. Hari Raya in Singapore requires stamina, to eat, to drink, to update status with handful of my maternal relatives that I normally meet only once a year. I met my grandma, 9 out of 11 uncles and aunties , about 2 dozens of cousins, several other distant relatives, in 6 houses within less than 24 hours. This year things were brief and less extravagant. Most of my working relatives had to get back to work on the next day. Many of my cousins had to go to school, and some would have exams, on the next day. The kids were so happy that the raya events ended around 11PM, that they had time to play among themselves.

Aimi had her quality time petting my cousin's rabbit. She always has this interest in animals. She actually wanted a real cat for my home coming present for her. Ironically, whatever she owned previously, lived very shortly. She used to have a kitten, Bingo, he died in less than a week. Her small tortoise, rabbits, fishes, hamsters had all died and gone to heaven. I had to bury them all in our backyard. My wife said finally, "There're enough deaths in the hospital already, and now deaths in the house, so we should NOT let her have any, anymore. Besides, dia pun bukannya rajin sangat nak membela...". She knew she couldn't win when her mother talked like that. So she accepted other things for her present instead. Here she was so happy and I hope my cousin won't report to me later that the rabbit had died too. Just additional mention here, Hadiff thinks all real animals are pest. He only likes them on TV cartoons.

The next morning we left Singapore and reunited with my wife. Our raya posing only happened on the second raya. Even then, Aimi got cranky and refused to show her face in the only photo of all the 4 of us, for an unknown reason.

The hari raya was then celebrated with relatives from my wife's side on the 3rd and 4th raya. We travelled in 2 cars to cover quite a spread of southern Johor heartland, which included Batu Pahat, Layang Layang and Kluang.

The kids met their great grandpa, on my wife's father's side, Tok Sinong. This man is over 100 years old. He came here from Sulawesi when he was 18 years old in the 1900s. He is now very old. When we came, he was left alone, locked in my wife's auntie's house. We broke in to meet him. I wasn't surprised. These are the son and daughters of my father-in-law, JB taiko besar. The old man remembered us and asked us to serve and eat the raya cookies ourselves. He amazed me when he opened his wallet and handed Aimi and Hadiff, RM10 each for duit raya. My kids were a bit taken aback since they have never really met someone that old, but they took the duit raya anyway.

This centenarian has difficulty in hearing. He still able to count money. He remembers faces. He still holds on to the present, but he gets time lapses sometimes. We have to shout to make him heard. When he understood the questions, he would answer. We can predict the time and events he would relate to since he would repeat the same thing over and over, in many different occasions. I wish I could ask him in the over 100 years he has lived, what matters the most in the end. But considering he was struggling to answer simple questions, I decided it's too much to ask.

When he took out his wallet to give away the duit raya, I noticed that he has with him an old photograph. I asked if I could see it. He took it out and show it to me. It was an old photograph of his children. It must be taken in the late 60s or early 70s. My father-in-law was the most handsome, standing and bespectacled. I guess his children matter to him dearly, if not the most, that he carries their photograph with him for so many years. I was thinking how many of us, the children, keep our parents' photos in our wallet....

Would I like to live a 100 years? If I have a choice, I would like to make my exit earlier. Life is great. Life is wondeful. But there will be a riping period of time when it is not wonderful anymore and your existence is a burden to your loved ones. But who am I, to speculate a rightful death?

I met some friends during hari raya. It was good to see them grow older and wiser. Over the years, a mere acquaintance in the past can be better friends in the present. News were exhanged. I came to know that I had missed the funerals of my 2 friends who had left us forever. Al-fatihah to my dear dorm-mate in MRSMJ, Allahyarham Azizi Sabran and my USM ROTU comrade, Allahyarham Mohd Farish Tajuddin. These are the good hearts, gone to soon.

I have this knotty feeling inside that I should end right here.