Jom Tengok Anak Bulan

Hey, calling on my siblings especially - time to go home and tengok anak bulan, eh?

Bulan, anak-anak Bulan dan cucu-cucu Bulan

Especially for the fact that they did not get to see it yesterday's afternoon and are now expecting the anak bulan to appear on the horizon tonight. Little did they realize they could have seen her in Taiping!


The reason I am making the call is for the fact that I am stuck here in Kuala Lumpur today on the very last day of Ramadhan, and I am not in Taiping as I would normally be, and that is rare and only happens once every few decades!

Typically in our family I would be the first one to ‘tengok anak bulan.’ Especially when I was working for Hyprotech, I have been given the liberty to take long Raya leaves (which showed how unimportant I was then!), and I would be the last one leaving when Syawal moon dah nak mengambang. Well, not quite, but the last one leaving Taiping is true.

It is always a tradition here in Malaysia to have a ceremony to determine the end of Ramadhan, even with the advent of technology. It's not the intent of me to discuss the need for this tradition - perhaps in another entry.

Suffice to say that the tradition is well alive in our family but we are not sure how long more this tradition can go on.

You see, anak (-anak) bulan is/are a disappearing specie. There used to be 12 anak bulan for us to view but now I guess there are only 5 of them left. Although I think the remaining five would remain at at least for many more years to come especially anak bulan in Taiping!

Of course I am talking about mak – for she is an anak Bulan. 

Literally.

You see our nenek's name is Bulan Binti Tammat, and hence that makes our mak an anak Bulan!

This is (nenek) Bulan. I am not sure when this was taken to be honest. It is not dated.

She is long gone from this world, but I am reminded of her every Raya with her dodol. May Allah bless her soul.

Selamat hari raya everybody, and maaf zahir batin.