A Raya To Remember

Empat sahabat dari tahun 1972 bergambar ramai dihari raya
ketiga di rumah mertua Jie yang jugak rumah Nazri, classmate yang duduk
bersebelahan dengan saya sebelum saya kehilangan anugerah penglihatan.
Siapa menjangka 38 tahun kemudian beraya bersama kembali?

I am always grateful to my teachers.

It does not matter if they had taught me at secondary school, or during our foundation years in primary. They would always be close to my heart, and I have nothing but good things to say about them.

Never mind that I had been caned before by them. Actually not once, but twice; once in Std 1 by Cikgu Ainon – for not being at my place when she told us so, and once in Std 4 at KE by Mrs Kuppu – for not bringing my homework with me. But that’s about it, nothing serious I would confess.

I told Lokman and Jie during the last week of Ramadhan that it was high time we went and ziarah our teachers  this year, and the 3^rd day of raya was chosen as the three of us were quite free that day, and it so happened that it was the exact day of our reunion a year ago.

So the timing was perfect. My brother Latif had also agreed to join the three musketeers and make it four.

Latif:

Kami bergerak jam 0920 pagi, dan jangkaan saya tepat, jam 1033 kami tiba di rumah mertua Khairul (Jie) di Lenggong. Ya! Hari ni hari kedua saya kesini, minus anak anak. Saya dan Rahman bersama pasangan masing masing. Saya tak jemu turun ke daerah kecil ini.

Armed with three-reunion albums, we went to Jie’s in-laws in Kampung Kota Lenggong and waited for our best buddies Lokman to turn up. In the end, the four classmates from Std 1-3 from the 70s (that’s nearly 40 years ago) plus two more and their families decided to make it a raya to remember.

Latif:

Jie dan isteri sudah sediakan mee kuah ketam untuk sarapan kami. Lokman pun tiba kira kira 10 minit kemudian, jadi bercerita panjanglah.

By the time we finished our excellent mee kuah courtesy of Jie’s family, it was already 12 pm. And we were running late before we even got started. Nazri, my good buddy and partner in Std 3A, aka Jie’s brother’s in-law, decided to join us that day as the fifth musketeers.

The plan was to visit our primary school teachers in Lenggong, Kuala Kangsar before heading to Sungai Siput and Ipoh. If we were able to fit in all, that is.

Latif:

Agak lama kami berbual, sambil mengatur rencana kearah mana tujuan kami berlima ni.

Kata sepakat dicapai bila Ustazah memberi laluan untuk kami bertandang.

Yes, kiranya, kali terakhir jugak saya bertemu Ustazah ni pada tahun 1972, dah melebihi 38 tahun.

Rumahnya bersebelahan surau Bukit Senyum tu.

Ustazah Maimunah

Ustazah Maimunah during the early 70s must be the only teacher with a selendang over her head. She taught Ugama to us all. I don’t remember specific incidents with her, since she was not our class teacher then. But I was made to understand that she was reasonably strict.

Then again, which teacher was not strict in the 70s?

Latif:

Saya masih ingat wajah Ustazah Maimunah di tahun 1972. Satu satunya guru yang berselindang dikepalanya. Bila kami minta foto foto lama simpanan beliau, jawapannya, "Buat apa nak tengok, tak elok pun gambar gambar lama tu."

She did not come to the reunion due to prior engagement, so she told us. We had to introduce ourselves to her and it is normally easier to introduce ourselves as the son of so and so. She probably would remember our parents better.

“Saya anak SO Hariri,” I introduced myself to Ustazah. After Jie and Lokman had introduced themselves to get her to jog her memory lane. I am not sure if she remembers me at all. To be honest, at this stage, it didn’t matter at all. But she remembers quite a bit of everybody else. It is just a matter of telling her anak siapa. Anak-anak Ustaz Latif, Cikgu Saidin, Tok Penghulu Ibrahim, Cikgu Razman or Cikgu Zakaria – she remembers them all. “Mana Zainoor Liza?” she asked when looking at the album. She remembers him too, very well I guess to be asking about him.

I am not surprised she remembers most of us, if not all, judging from her reaction while looking at the reunion albums.

Latif:

Bila kami tunjukkan foto Reunion Coolbatch 2009 tu, ternyata Ustazah Maimunah boleh menyebut dan mengingati setiap nama anak anak murid , siap dengan nama jolokan ayah masing masing lagi. Hebat kan?! Apa yang saya suka, Ustazah boleh mengingati SO Hariri serta anak Tok Kadir yang rambutnya berdandan dua tu!

Kalaulah anda dapat melihat layanan Ustazah Maimunah ni dan kepetahan beliau bercerita, anda pasti merasa seperti emak emak anda jugak. Ternyata, sebut sahaja nama ayah masing masing, pasti beliau akan mengingati nama anak anak mereka.

She could not believe seeing Cikgu Hizam with all his sideburns and beards. “Yes, he looks like a professor now,” Lokman said.

One for the album with Ustazah. We were all her students in primary school.

One with everybody in it, well, almost. Except the
photographer I supposed.

Latif:

Di awal perpisahan tu, saya jangkakan hanya bersalaman biasa, antara saorang Ibu Guru dan anak murid, ternyata saya silap.

Berguguran air mata Ustazah Maimunah. Saya yang pertama besalaman, dan Ustazah terus memeluk saya dengan deraian airmata. Habis sebak satu rumah. Saya tak sangka yang Ustazah begitu terharu dengan kehadiran kami, kesemua anak murid beliau, beliau peluk sayang, termasuk para isteri kami.

Apa yang saya nak katakan lagi?

Beliau sebak kerana ada anak anak murid yang masih mengingati beliau pada ketika saat usia begini.

Kepada rakan rakan batch 1971-1976, apa ditunggu lagi. Lakukan sesuatu.

As told by Latif, when it was time to go, she started hugging us one by one. I didn’t give it a second thought until I heard noise resembling someone crying. I looked up at her and then I realized that Ustazah was crying. And it did not just stop there. More tears were shed as she hugs us all; one at a time. “Terima kasih datang melawat ustazah,” she said, “kalau dengar ustazah dah tak da, sedeaqahkan lah alfatihah kat Ustazah. Tak payah panjang-panjang, al-fatihah pun jadilah”

“Kami doakan Ustazah dipanjangkan umur dan diberi kesihatan,” Jie replied. I am glad Jie was there. He always knew on the right thing to say at the right time.

It was a touching scene, a very touching moment indeed. I did not expect that at all. I did not know how to react, to be honest.

She has difficulty letting us go. After we had gone to our cars, Lokman and I had to wait for another 15 mins or more, while she and Jie’s wife continue chatting outside. It was obvious to us she didn’t want it to end.

And this is the picture I took of them from my car. YOu can see Ustazah with Jie's wife there.

If anyone of us has time, do go and visit her. Our visit must have caught her by surprise, and it overwhelmed her, to be honest.I certainly did not expect that to be honest.

Latif:

Rencana seterusnya ke rumah Cikgu Kamarul Baharin. ternyata azan zuhur. Selalunya Cikgu Kamarul Baharin berada di Masjid, jadi, kami menghala semula ke rumah Cikgu Aziz.

Cikgu yang paling ceria dengan senyuman manisnya!

Kami tiba pun waktu Zuhur, jadi kena tunggu hingga selesai solatnya Cikgu Aziz.

Cikgu Aziz Debok

“Mana gambarnya?” he asked the moment he stepped into his living room where we had been chatting amongst ourselves, while waiting for him.

All of us burst into laughter. We had been expecting him to say that. “Cikgu Faridah said the same thing, Cikgu,” I told him, while handing him the albums I had brought from KL. I was prepared for that already, that's for sure.

Latif:

"Ha, yang ini tunggu lama baru nak dapat tengok. Dah setahun ye?" permulaan cikgu Aziz bila menatap 3 foto foto Reunion Coolbatch . Memang tak kering gusi dengan lawakkan beliau.


Bewak aka Biawak is his favourite story of the Gelok slang when he was a headmaster there. Sampaikan ada ibu-bapak yang datang bertanyakan tentang kesalahan anaknya yang menulis perkataan 'bewak' didalam kelas.

It was Endless Laugh at Cikgu Aziz house.

And then he delivered his verdict on us. “This is the most successful batch SRJK(I) Lenggong had ever had,” claimed Cikgu Aziz Debok, while browsing through the pictures, “in term of career, that is.” I am surprised by his declaration, but proud nonetheless.

“Thanks to our teachers,” Jie responded immediately.

“No, no, it was your own effort,” he retorted. I could not believe it to be honest. He denied having any responsibility for our ‘success’. Typical real teachers, I guess. Humble. If we are successful, it is our own effort. If we failed, then they have failed as teachers. Hmmm..

Dalam berbual, sempat cikgu menyakat
Nazri, samada perlu ayah mencarikan
pengganti. Nazri tersipu, tapi Jie menyampuk
dengan mengatakan spec abang iparnya
itu terlalu tinggi!

Honestly I am not sure if indeed we are. There are more successful individuals like Datuk Sri Shazaly of Celcom Axiata – he seems to be on their lips many times, and a few others that have escaped me. We did not have outstanding individuals, but in general, we do have a successful batch as a group.

Doctors, engineers, teachers, administrators to name but a few. Who am I to say many of us are not successful parents too?

And then again, there is nothing to be gained by Cikgu for saying that to us. He is not like Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former IOC president who would declare at each venue that that was the best ever Olympic, to the applause of the home country, but to the chagrin of everybody else.

Duit raya time for the cucu-cucu.
A teacher is always a parent.

And then again, he has been a teacher for over35 years and a good number of years as headmaster in the Lenggong valley. He knew what he was talking about.


He did have his regrets.  "I tried, but failed to stop the authorities from demolishing our old school. It was done after I have retired. They should have spared the school," he told us, "It holds too many memories for all of us."


“Most of the time, I am in Shah Alam or Kota Damansara,” he told me. That’s why we were able to meet up with him at the wedding of Cikgu Faridah’s daughter a few years back in Taman Tun. Had I known it, we could have invited him for the buka puasa too last month.

Latif:

Betul. Cikgu Aziz sering bertandang ke rumah anak anak di Kuala Lumpur. Katanya, seminggu sebelum berangkat, pasti beliau mencukur bersih kepala beliau, gara gara cucu cucu yang nak bermain dengan kepala datuk mereka!!.  Adakah kita akan begitu jugak? Hahaha..

Begitulah Cikgu Aziz, walaupun saya tak sempat dibawah seliaan beliau, dihari ini, saya boleh bayangkan bagaimana Roziah cukup gembira dapat berada di SRJK(I) hingga tahun 1976.

I went for the lontong while the others the laksa.

Menu hari tu, laksa, lontong, ketupat dan rendang , termasuk kuih muih. Agak lama kami bertandang.

Until he reminded us that we still have quite a few houses to visit, then only we started making our moves.

But before we left, we still need to complete one more task - taking formal picture to commemorate the occasions.

One for the album with Cikgu Aziz and his wife. This house was built
on the site of our first ever house in Lenggong. Cikgu bought the land
from ADO Abdullah who is the father of another classmate of ours, Fazidah.

Latif:

Seterusnya kami bergerak ke rumah Cikgu Kamarul Baharin. Ternyata cikgu dah pulang dari Masjid Kg Chain mengerjakan solat Zuhurnya.

Cikgu Kamarul Bahrin

I don’t remember him that much since he didn’t teach our class the first three years, so I am not sure if I can add much here, to be honest.

Latif:

Kami disambut mesra. Agak berusia cikgu ni. Saya memang tidak mempunyai apa apa kenangan bersama Cikgu Kamarul Baharin ni. Tapi, bila lihat foto beliau di awal perkahwinan, kira boleh cam lah jugak, siapa guru ini.

But he has quite well-kept old albums of the yesteryears, and as usual Lokman and Jie had to jog his memory lane while going through the reunion albums. If I am not mistaken, he was in KK during the reunion and totally forgot about it that day, and hence did not join us that night.

Entah apalah yang menarik minat 4 sahabat ketika membelek album cikgu Kamarul Baharin.

Lokman explaining to Cikgu on events during last year's
reunionBro was our official spokesman that day.

One for the album with cikgu Kamarulbahrin. Kami melindungi
kereta proton saga cikgu yang ber-platekan negeri Kedah KBC dot-dot
dot-dot. Katanya Lokman, Kamarul Bahrin Chain! Cantik.

Cikgu Aripuddin

Cikgu had just joined us in 1972 and was the class teacher for Class 3B, while Cikgu Faridah was the class teacher of 3A. Then a bachelor, he stayed in Kampung Sira, and would hold tuition class for many of us who would frequent his house. I remember using his tuition class as an excuse on a Saturday morning to not attend kelas mengaji by Makcik (kampung Masjid?).

Then he has a Vespa and I remember a time when he would ask me to carry a TV set (or according to him, it must be a radio set since he did not own a TV set yet) for repair.

I guess it must have been one of the earliest tuition class (and in Std 3, mind you) though unlike tuition of present days, his was free of charge!

Thank you, Cikgu.

I remember him reasonably well because of that and the Ceritera Tiga Sahabat that he told while taking over Class 3A in the absence of Cikgu Faridah in 1972. I related this to him and he was able to quote the 3^rd sahabats.

I used to have an entry on this story, but I guess I must have lost it with the closure of Yahoo 360 blog. I would have to rewrite it again if you have forgotten this. The story is about si Botak, si Kudis buta dan si Hingus. You would be amazed with the adventure ala pak pandir!

Jie mentioned a tip by Cikgu on how to have a good ‘remos’. When you wash your hand after your meals, make sure you wipe your hair with your hand!

Cikgu Aripuddin concurs with his 1970s tip this Raya.

As usual, the explanation is left to Lokman.

It was quite a fun late afternoon with him. He used to own a Mini Cooper, and he would pull up the aerial to the max, pretending as if his Mini Cooper has a radio, when it did have one!

Obviously many more stories were told and retold that afternoon. We decide to end the ziarah raya at his house. Cikgu Nurul apparently has a gathering to attend, so it didn’t make sense for us to head to Sg Siput. As such, we had to skip heading to Ipoh too as it was getting late too.

One for the album with Cikgu Aripuddin and his family

What a day it has been for us, and I do hope we have made a difference to our teachers’ raya day this year, in our small ways.

Time to say goodbye. Till we meet again..thank you
to my four brothers, three of which are in this picture.
Thank you for the support for this expedition.

We do owe Cikgu Nurul, Cikgu Ainon a visit. Of course not to mention those in Kuala Lumpur including my secondary school teachers, especially those who had been visiting us the past few years like Cikgu Dr Fatanah.

EPILOGUE

This is a joint entry between the two brothers. The segments in English are by yours truly, while the Malay segments are by Latif and they are in yellow. His blog can be found at izzuddinjanaton.blogspot.com. You can also double click on the pictures to see us in our full glory.

Raya di Jalanan

How do you like ketupat, taken here against the the backdrop of the chasing light
by Akmal, on the night of the first Raya in Taiping before they were
all devoured by this writer?

It is a most satisfying Raya this time around, albeit spending the first day on the highway - which is a first for us, although I am sure, to many, this would not be best way to celebrate Raya.

And no, we did not go and stay at hotel or go on holiday during the Raya this year. We have never done that and we will never celebrate Raya that way, insyaAllah. t is too Mat Salleh for my liking. Unfortunately neither did we entertain any group of ‘assalamualaikum’ kids who would normally go around the neighbourhood and came avisiting (and there was none this time around.)

This time around, it is our turn to go visiting. And visiting we did with zest this time around.

Normally I would be just way too lazy to stay vertical after pekena sebatang lemang. The pulut in the  lemang normally made me too sleepy lah! So in the end, we just lazed around on the first day of Raya, waiting for people to turn up.

Three houses on the first day - albeit at least 100 km apart from each other, six on the second day, and another five on the third day. On the fourth day six households in 5 cars and over 30 people came to our house and to top it off, we visited one.

It may not sound too impressive, but considering that we spent about 8 hours on each day meeting relatives and friends and chatting, I believe it was quality time at each location. It was not a whirlwind raya visits, like what I used to do when I was a student. We took the time to chat, and  catch up on each others.

And all in all, over 120 people I have met this Raya.

By 6 am on the Raya morning, we were driving to Tasik Puteri and reached my inlaw’s by 7.15 am. It is abnormal for us as we would by this time around be at Tekah visiting bapak, mak ngah's, pak long's, tok adam's and pc usop’s graves.

Taken at 10.30 am right after Raya prayer at Tasik Puteri.
The baju raya is recycled from last year. It seems like a waste
to buy new ones just for the sake of buying new one.

It is a break from tradition for us to be praying in a strange location and with no grave to visit. So I was ready for a duller Raya to be honest.

Aren't they adorable?

But the antics of the nephews and nieces made raya more fun, I guess.

Especially once you take out the camera.

They would start posing. Kids will always be kids.

By 12 pm, we were on our way to Taiping, thinking we could say our Friday prayer in Bidor. But the traffic on Raya day itself is heavy, and we ended up spending quite a bit of our Raya hours on the hiway.

In some sense, we were left wondering if we had made the right decision to travel on the first raya, thinking that no one would want to travel on Raya day itself. But I guess, our thinking were like others too. The jam for people trying to avoid the jam.


Eventually we arrived in Bidor at 2.30 pm - a good one hour later than plan, and visited PC Ya and family. He was also having a quiet Raya as both his son and daughter in law were working on Raya day.

Pak Cik Ya. Three generations of the Babs. But his size is
only half of ours. He does resemble his dad, Tok Bab,
who is my grandfather. He was a favorite uncle when
we were kids (in Lenggong) as he was quite
generous with his nieces and nephews.

It has been quite sometimes since the Hariri last visited bapak's younger brother. In my case, this is my second visit in two months. I certainly would not want to have any regret later for not visiting my elders.


"Thanks for coming," he said, as a matter of factly, "this could be my last Raya." I stared hard at him and said, "No, we are going to celebrate more Rayas together."

I was not having this kind of talk during Raya time. 


And then off to Taiping and reached home by 5.10 pm.

Only Mak was there. Funny family of ours; for a mother having 13 sons and daughters, she spent say two good hours on her own, alone on a hari raya!

With no one at home, the time was ripe for me to devour ketupat and more ketupat, and lemang and mihun sup.

Did I mention we brought back dalca from Rawang, though unfortunately the briyani was not ready by the time we left Rawang for Taiping?

However, by 8, another bro arrived from Sg Petani with his family, and it was as close a resemblance to a normal Hari Raya night as one can get, albeit one with only grown up kids.

No kids fighting for their Raya fire crackers for sure that night.

On the second day of Raya, we were out from 10 am and did not return home until about 7 pm. All in all, we only visited 5 houses in Batu Kurau. So I guess, on average, we spent at least an hour per house, and you can’t get more quality time than that.

After all, Raya time is the only time for us to meet up, or if we are lucky, during a wedding, so it was catch up time.

Rumah Pak Su Majid

Paksu Majid is heading for Haj this year eventhoug
his turn for haj is 2024. After we had our meals, another set
of relatives who are cousins to the wife, dropped by, so it
became a big family gathering. Here we had rendang
ayam piru. You can't top that I guess.

Rumah PakCik Mat

Pak cik Mat and MC Nah with their children
and grandchildren. MC Nah is recovering from her
stroke and yet we had our lunch here with sop
tulang and ikan pekasam!

Rumah Pak Long Malek

We went to this house twice, since there are two
houses side by side here.

Rumah Pak Ngah Yusof 

The (PakNgah) Yusuf's at the back
of his house which is a well maintained dusun. Ayu, her daughter
is also studying in Melaka like Arif. While we were talking
the ladies were cooking lontong.

Rumah Paksu Ee

His house was the first of house we went to in Cheruk
Pelandok in Batu Kurau.

On the 4^th day, we have 6 families visiting us at one go, overwhelming us quite a bit, that we ran out of food! Would you believe that? It was an embarrassing moment for us for we did not anticipate the sheer number of the entourage.

Cucu cicit Tok Adam and Nenek Bulan aka our cousins visiting their auntie aka
Mak. This is a yearly affair for them. With 4 cars and anMPV and
two bikes this time around, we were a bit overwhelmed as we did not prepare
this time around. You don't get any closer than the families of the
Mahmuds. Seia sekata, sehati sejiwa, although theirs are as big as ours.

But I am glad my cousins decided to visit us - actually we have been waiting for them since the first day of raya, and to pay back for their deeds, we immediately visited another cousin of ours (another of their brothers) who just had his leg amputated (to the knee) due to diabetes. We tried visiting him 4 months ago, but could not find his house.

Mind you, these are just snippets of the first and 3rd day of Raya. All in all, I travelled more than 400 km for this purpose. 

Anak bulan Syawal as captured by 
Akmal last night while traveling 
back to KL. That's a fifth night anak 
bulan, though it surely does look like
a 6th or 7th night anak bulan. Come to think
of it, may be we should have celebrated
raya a day or two earlier!

What the heck, raya hanya setahun sekali.


And the syawal moon is still an anak bulan, so we still have time to do more visiting.


Anybody with open house this Malaysia day holiday and this weekend?

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.

Malam Tujuh Likur Part II

Akmal in 2004 preparing for Malam Tujuh Likur. Fortunately
it is now designed like an obor, so to satisfy our religious
requirement, we now have our own identity, just like the
old days in  P Ramlee's movie.

Now that we done our reminiscing and take that out of our way, let us move back to the present, and enjoy the roses while we can. While we can't do it the Talang way here in KL with their mammoth meriam buluhs, I am sure we can find ways to enjoy ourselves, despite the constraint of space and the fact that the government has banned everything that would let kids enjoy themselves.

These pictures were taken at our home in Cheras. Most were taken the past few days during Ramadhan 2010, a couple of them were taken in 2004, including this video.

Pelita as I have mentioned in an earlier entry, is a must for us. Even though we now have enough street light, I thought the kids can still enjoy lives as they were as I have experienced it before. It is a small price to pay I guess for that privilege.

The main problem with lighting up the pelita is the difficulty in having access to kerosene aka minyak tanah.  You can't just buy kero anymore from your friendly neighbourhood store; definitely you can't get it from your local supermart.

Hakim and his younger bro enjoying playing at night, a
a special night for sure.

In my case, I would have to travel quite a bit to Ulu Langat and go the rural mom-and-pop grocery store to find our supply of fuel for the pelita.

In my case, it costs me five bucks for a 1 1/2 litre bottle of kero. At least, they are available. I am  not sure what they would use it for nowadays. We do not the kerosene stove anymore. So the demand for kerosene has dwindled quite a bit.

With that we were able to have our Malam Tujuh Likur this Ramadhan.

Arif overseeing his younger cousins having fun

Akmal and his younger cousins a couple of weeks ago when they dropped by for a two-family buka puasa session at my home.

Fortunately we have something to keep the kids entertained that night albeit old stocks of bunga api from a few years back.

I guess Arif and Akmal have all grown up, so playing with crackers and fireworks are not in their  list of things to do. But they were responsible enough to oversee their younger cousins having fun.

In the end when the bunga apis run out, the kids decided to have fun by blowing out the pelitas while their big bro Hakim continue to light them again and again.

Akmal on the other hand is having fun on his own. He used long exposure to capture these figures - match stick man, this time around made from light.

Akmal,  you should have tried writing Selamat Hari Raya using your bunga api. I am not sure if he is in the picture or how long the exposure was.

And I have more axe to grind.





As I have mentioned before, I am not sure why KLites seems a bit lazy in decorating their home in view of the arrival of Syawal.

And for some reasons, the Chaser lights we bought last year did not last us a lifetime, so we had to buy new ones and we decided to go blue this year.

And this is the result.

Being lazy fellow that we are today, Akmal and I quickly wrapped the lights onto the grill and I thought it was not too bad an idea. We could have made it look more systematic, but we were hungry by then

I am not sure how it would look externally, but I thought it should brighten my house and at least create a cheery atmosphere.

Akmal took all the pictures. I love the diode light (LED), and it was supposed to last much longer than their mentol bulb.

As long as it does not resemble Christmas, I would not mind the bluish chaser light. But to create that effect, I had to buy two sets - that 200 LED burning throughout the night.

I forgot about another aspect of Malam Tujuh Likur, and this one came from the old days in Kampung Sira Lenggong. It was a wooden house on stilts, and bapak used to hang a tanglong in the shape of a star. Come to think of it, may be it was (aruah) PC Ajis punya kerja. It would be made from bamboo and a transparent paper would be used to wrapped around the bamboo structure.

Then we would use candle to light up the star tanglong, and we would hang it on the ceiling near the main entrance. 

Obviously we adopted this from the Chinese.

I still have some paper star tanglong from 2005, when we bought them in Penang, so this afternoon I decided to hang it outside the house. Unfortunately I randomly picked a red one, so it may look like it is Chinese New Year. I will change to another blue or green tanglong tomorrow night.

Obviously nowadays, we don't use candle anymore. It is now powered by the electricity. TNB would have loved me this Ramadhan like no other for contributing more money to their coffer.

I hope they won't be suing me for saying this.

But whatever I have is nothing compared to what the Banjarmasin people have this Ramadhan. I leave it to you to decide and form your own opinion.

The Ramadhan procession in Banjarmaasin

Even their floating market is well lited

Malam Tujuh Likur Part I

Malam Tujuh Likur is a night we used to look forward to, when we were kids.

And why not; it is a night filled up with fun activities for us. In fact it's not just one night. It could be the last 7 nights of Ramadhan, even though the last three nights are considered malam tujuh likur, officially, that is.

Actually malam tujuh likur initially was closely associated with malam lailatul qadr, as the 27th night of Ramadhan is considered a premier night for both events. However, due to modernization I guess, the activities start diverging and there seems to be a disconnection between these two. Malam tujuh likur is almost associated with lampu pelita, panjut, bunga api, mercun,  meriam buluh and fun, while Malam Lailatul Qadr is typically the night when one should be doing lotsa prayers and ibadah.

Have I mentioned bunga api and mercun? That is before Malaysia becoming a police state and ban everything that is fun.

I have never been bothered about the meaning of Tujuh Likur. Why tujuh (seven), and not eight, and what's the meaning of Likur? A quick check in Kamus Dewan reveals the following info:

likur: bilangan antara 20 dan 30, dua puluhan; tujuh~ dua puluh tujuh; selikur dua puluh satu.

There you are, if you were the uninitiated kind, like me, before. That's the reason why it is called malam tujuh likur. If there was any doubt that the practice is associated with the Lailatul Qadr, this should nullify your fear. The nights of likur, as they are towards the end of the months, are quite dark with little, if any, moon light. So I guess our fore-fathers decided to brighten the night with pelita and panjuts.

There was no electricity in the kampungs then, and the pelita and panjuts helped them on their way to the suraus and masjid for their prayers, while looking for Lailatul Qadr. Of course they could have differentiated it from other religion's practices by say adopting obor instead of pelita (like in P Ramlee's old film), but it would be more difficult for us to make. It would be cool though. Anyway, that's the theory. Whether it is true or not, well, let's consider that that's the truth for now.

My earliest memory of malam tujuh likur is in Batu Gajah. We were then too young to remember much, but playing with the crackers that exploded in one's hand was no fun for me. It was not too bad I guess, nothing that a little bit of brylcream cannot handle.

A light application of the famous hair mousse would do the job. No need to see the doc and get proper medical attention. We were tough kids then, I supposed.

And back to playing with more crackers and bunga api!

Obviously for us back then, we played with simple black-and-white bunga api - bunga api cap mata kucing. The handle is made of metal, so you would have to be a bit careful with the lingering heat. But unlike some fanciful bunga api nowadays, this bunga api would only give out yellowish fire, or white sparks, mono-coloured, and set against the dark sky, I would call it the black-and-white bunga api.

No fancy-coloured firework then. The bunga api that gives out colourful sparks came in much later.

However, mercun or crackers were not something we would normally play with. May be it was due to the earlier incident; may be bapak was a bit strict about about safety and hence seldom, if ever, we would get to play with mercun. I am sure with us being kids, we would still play with it, but nothing that would tell him that we were playing with it. So we would have to select the smallest and the ones that would give the least noise.

It is like an oxymoron, isn't it? ;-) Crackers that would give out the least noise, do they exist?

We did, however, play the more fancied mercun and bunga api at nenek's house in Assam Kumbang, albeit being observers most of the time. PC Usop and PC Nasir were bigger kids than us then, and were considered adult enough to play those mercuns that would shoot as high as the coconut trees, and on purpose they would choose a coconut tree as target.

Complete with a parachute that would be ejected at the end of the glorious and fanciful fireworks.

We have to wait for the uncles to lighten the fireworks, and enjoy the show, and then rush to the explosion site to capture the parachute floating down.

I am sure we still have similar fireworks nowadays, but with the advent of the police-state policy in this country - and the fact that we do not have much space anymore, we seldom would play these types of fireworks in KL.

May be in Taiping, where we would have space more abundantly.

Of course my memory of tujuh likur is not dotted with fireworks and firecrackers only. Half of the fun is preparing to lighten up the dark night with fanciful pelita and panjut. At that time, we were innocent I guess. It had never occurred to us then that malam tujuh likur has similarity to Deepavali, and that the spirit of Lailatul Qadr was not in our mind those nights.

We were just looking forward to the first of syawal.

For that, we would need pelita and panjut and litter that through out the compound. We were then competing with the neighbours on whose house would be brighter, and prettier.

Back then, we did not buy the pelita, we would make them ourselves. It was easy; all you need are tin susu and some tali guni, and hey presto, you have pelita. Now you can simply buy them at Carrefour for RM6.

Of course, you need minyak tanah or kero as fuel for the little fire. Back then kero was cheap, and plentiful. Nowadays I would have to drive to Ulu Langat to get my supply of kerosene, and I pay RM5 for a 1.5 L bottle of kero.

In Lenggong, we would go and look for our own bamboo to make the panjut, and for that we would need to enter some secondary jungle up a small hill behind our Simpang Labit home.

Our Labit house in Lenggong

You can see the hill and the jungle in this picture. It is quite a jungle out there complete with the remains of a house in its midst, so even during the day, it was quite scary, but in the name of tujuh likur and some older kids, we braved it then for some bamboo.

The whole compound was then filled with our bamboo panjuts, we were expecting that the light from our panjuts would fill up the dark Lenggong nights of the 70s.

Obviously, then we hope to kick the ass of the anak2 tok penghulu, our neighbour whose house is basically behind ours. They probably have more kids than the Hariris, and for some unknown reasons, we do not get along that well with them. Neighbourly rivalry may be. May be.

And for some reasons that are still a mystery to me even today, many of the panjuts were not in working order that night. The light  I was expecting from the combustion of kerosene did not occur as it should be, except for may be a few. May be it had rained that day, I don't remember anymore.

May be it was this failure that drives me to become a chemical engineer that I am today!

This is of course only true in this blog. Nowhere else, as I remember it, it would come into the picture in 1980 when we had to decide what course we would be taking after our SPM days. I am trying to write to make up for the space I have in this blog! ;-)

Beyond all the bunga apis, the panjuts and the pelita, another must for us would be the lampu kelip-kelip. To that is synonymous with Raya and malam tujuh likur, without them, it would be just like any another night during the year.

This I believe is a forgotten art especially in my area, for one could count the number of houses that would have the lampu kelip-kelip which I thought is a shame. Typically when we were in Taiping, bapak would take us out for a spin in Assam Kumbang to enjoy the light show during malam tujuh likur.

with apology to the owner

Obviously I stole these two pictures from the net, with apology from the owner.

It is not to say that we should imitate Christmas, but in December, they would have fanciful decoration in the compound. Of course they have Christmas them of reindeer and santa claus, and they use white light, typically icicles type of lampu kelip kelip, but ours are normally coloured light and would be kelip-kelip, if you know what I mean.

Assam Kumbang would be richly decorated in the 70s with the fancy and colourful lights. It was so beautiful at night, knowing fully well that some special days are coming to the fore. Then, that is. Nowadays, unless you are muslims yourself, you would not know there would be a grand celebration coming anytime soon.

Where would we be with malam tujuh likur without the meriam buluh?

Obviously as bapak would not have approved it for safety reasons, we can only watch, the penghulu kids playing meriam buluh at their house in Simpang Labit. We would never touch it, and meriam buluh were very popular with the kampung kids in Lenggong, and I do not recall anyone getting hurt then.

May be many of the kampung kids were smarter chemical engineer wanna-be, and are quite safety conscious with the carbide, may be, I don't know.

But enjoy this scene in Kg Talang in Kuala Kangsar. Talang is also our kampung, on bapak side as Tok Bab lived here in the 70s and his house is still in good live-able conditions. I don't remember us playing crackers here that much as there weren't as many kids here as in Aulong - only PC Mat there I guess.

But these video is a reminder of the days gone by and the boisterous celebrations that we used to enjoy back then in the 60s and 70s.

You can have war between two kampungs during malam tujuh likur. After all, one can still seek forgiveness during Hari Raya!

Although these are no longer meriam buluh.

Malam Seribu Bulan

I was reminded today during the Jumaat prayer about the inevitable Lailatul Qadr, so I thought I should post these three Youtube video as a reminder to myself. Moga kita semua dianugerahkan pertemuan dengan malam seribu bulan, Amin.

The first is the surah Lailatul Qadr.

(97:1) Behold, We revealed this (Qur'an) on the Night of Power.1	اِنَّاۤ اَنۡزَلۡنٰهُ فِىۡ لَيۡلَةِ الۡقَدۡرِ ۖ ۚ‏ ﴿97:1﴾
(97:2) And what do you know what the Night of Power is?	وَمَاۤ اَدۡرٰٮكَ مَا لَيۡلَةُ الۡقَدۡرِؕ‏ ﴿97:2﴾
(97:3) The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.2	لَيۡلَةُ الۡقَدۡرِ  ۙ خَيۡرٌ مِّنۡ اَلۡفِ شَهۡرٍؕ‏ ﴿97:3﴾
(97:4) The angels along with the Spirit3 descend in it by the permission of their Lord4 with all kinds of decrees.	تَنَزَّلُ الۡمَلٰٓٮِٕكَةُ وَالرُّوۡحُ فِيۡهَا بِاِذۡنِ رَبِّهِمۡ‌ۚ مِّنۡ كُلِّ اَمۡرٍ ۛۙ‏ ﴿97:4﴾
(97:5) All peace is that night until the rise of dawn.5	سَلٰمٌ   ۛهِىَ حَتّٰى مَطۡلَعِ الۡفَجۡرِ‏ ﴿97:5﴾

Taken from here.

Here are the virtues of the Night of Power.



And after we have done our prayers, let's listen to some nasyeed by Bimbo. I love this song, in fact I love all songs by Bimbo.



Margasatwa Tak Berbunyi 
Gunung Menahan Nafasnya 
Angin Pun Berhenti 
Pohon-Pohon Tunduk 
Dalam Gelap Malam 
Pada Bulan Suci Qur'An Turun Ke Bumi 
Qur'An Turun Ke Bumi 

Margasatwa Tak Berbunyi 

Gunung Menahan Nafasnya 

Angin Pun Berhenti 

Pohon-Pohon Tunduk 

Dalam Gelap Malam 

Pada Bulan Suci Qur'An Turun Ke Bumi 

Qur'An Turun Ke Bumi 

Inilah Malam Seribu Bulan 
Ketika Cahaya Sorga Menerangi Bumi 
Ketika Cahaya Sorga Menyinari Bumi 
Inilah Malam Seribu Bulan 
Ketika Tuhan Menyeka Airmata Kita 
Ketika Tuhan Menyeka Dosa-Dosa Kita 
Lyrics : Taufiq Ismail