Many years ago, I walked out of my boarding school, located in a sleepy place called Simpang Kerayong on Friday afternoons to go the mosque. Instead of making a bee line to the mosque dutifully and religiously, I found myself reaching for the bunch of rambutans and plucking them from the trees lined along the road between the school and the mosque. Damn it, those rambutans, freshly plucked and peeled in that sunny afternoon, were simply one of the juiciest things ever tasted in my younger years. It was the taste which was sweetened with the sins of stealing the fruits from their rightful owner and skipping the Friday sermon. Those days I reasoned that there was no point listening to the sermon delivered by somebody who just read the text and didn't understand what was delivered. One day we had a good laugh when the preacher mouthed the word Aedes, when it was supposed to be AIDS. So that was my excuse not to listen to him anymore and instead I took my time sucking the juice, nipping the sweet flesh of the rambutans and spitting off the seeds to the ground.
x x x x x x x x x x
Over a decade later, I was under the shade of cherry trees in Nagano. I had been better then. I paid to enter the cherry farm. I plucked the red cherries from the trees and feasted on them. They were fresh and juicy, but they were not as great as the stolen rambutans.
x x x x x x x x x x
Today is Friday, the off day for most working people in Dubai. I found myself at work on this Friday morning and thinking what to have for breakfast. An adventurous colleague of mine, who once worked in the tall oil rig in the middle of the Indian Ocean, climbed up a date tree in our factory compound and snatched down a bunch of ripe dates. The dates were washed and served on my desk. They were so sweet and soft that I had nothing else for breakfast. While feeding on the fleshy dates, I couldn't help thinking of the stolen rambutans. Some experiences are mentally framed forever.
11 comments:
hej! Jumper...sweet things would not be forgotten, especially the sinful sweet things...;-)
i think the word AIDS been wrongly pronounced as AEDES - sebab kitab khutbah tu ditulis dalam tulisan jawi (alif, ya, dal, sin) - so, kemungkinan tersalah sebut.. mungkin lah
Danial,
As a man we have the adam's apple to make us remember and mark the fall of Adam after he was tempted with the sweet sinful fruit in heaven.
hady,
I was a silly and unforgiving boy. In my growing years, I believed that every mistakes must be punished. Now I have grown to forgive.
those dates look so yummy!
They are...and they're for free.
Nice Blog. Congrats.
-Zakir Ali ‘Rajnish’
{ Secretary-TSALIIM & SBAI }
[Editor- Children’s Poem & Adult’s Poem]
yup,
good old days.
a nice thing to remember.
*rambutan, mangos, guavas! ..heh..heh..heh
I wish I could pluck and eat fresh dates in Dubai someday. I have not seen any ripe dates trees anywhere in my area.
Your stolen rambutan story reminds me of my stolen tembikai story during ramadhan long time ago. Indeed it was the most delicious tembikai I've ever had.
there's no other delicious and tempted fruit than "forbidden" fruit...
azizi,
Fruity thought is a pleasant thought...
Syamsulfaiz (farewell Nasution),
It's a season for riping dates. Soon you'll see red riping dates hanging from the trunk. It's a happy sight over here.
Stolen tembikai during RAMADHAN, no way I can beat that, you rascal!
orangmuar,
What's forbidden is always attractive. What's attractive is always remembered. The attraction is mostly psychological rather than physical. I hope I make sense.
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