A Good Weekend …

1. Jogged a good distance with my wife(Sat and Sun).
2. Attended akikah at my friend’s house.
3. Did not spoil the class lecture although I had to wait for one hour for the students to turn up(Yes one hour!)---weekend class for part-timers is so pathetic!
4. A good reunion in the evening.
5. My daughter Aqeelah was back for the weekend with friend.
6. Took Ariefah to her drama practice.
7. Dropped Ahmad at his friend’s
8. Roasted chicken for lunch.
9. Successfully put up two blinds at the front porch(my primary weekend project)
10. Cleaned up my little garden (favorite!)

11. Drove Aqeelah back to college.
12. Picked up Ariefah and Ahmad back.
13. Stayed for kuliah Maghrib---a good one
14. still have some money left in the bank account (usually it’s gone before the actual month has not even started….)
15. and still got sometime to write up this blog

Nothing fancy but I like it because it’s STRESS FREE----isn’t that what “weekend” is all about!

Where has it gone?

I am talking about my time. I don’t have the time to update my blog anymore. It is so frustrating. The day seems shorter than ever and the night is always the end of the day. Am I getting slower or does the world around me move faster? I am confused now. The thing is that I hate to have that “ things to do” list. People say that to manage your time well you need to have “lists”; so that you can arrange to do this and that properly. I have tried to follow that “things to do today” list and it’s just a daunting task for me. I felt like a slave of your own manifestation. I want to be free and surprise myself with “the last minute” decisions to do this and that. If I felt so lazy than be it; in my terms there is always the next time. Maybe you think that this is not a good habit; but you know what---the heck with it, I live my own life and don’t really give a damn about what other people think. Sounds like a grumpy ol’man, doesn’t it?

Time does fly fast. It would be faster if you wait for something. You wait for your son to get into school or your maid to arrive or your new car to drive. Do you know what would be the craziest and scariest wait of all? You wait for your retirement! Which has been on my mind for so many times. I wanted to avoid it but it just kept coming. For many of us retirement is for old people, very old indeed---it is the beginning of an end, of life!. I guess it is time to embrace the reality of life; the one like any other has the beginning and the end. It sounds so sad, doesn’t it? Well don’t be, because I am happy where I am now which is in the position to embrace the future. I love myself, my family and my friends; life just could not be better. For now I don’t fancy much, just a day without stress would be the happiest day for me.I don’t want to get busy doing other people’s task or making things up so you look busy. From dawn to dusk I would be with my thoughts; taking myself away from the stress-infested world around me.and at home after nine I would tell everyone that Abah has shut off for the day---no more noisy requests or reminders or news (good or bad), everything has to move over to tomorrow. No more business for the day.

I have no time to enjoy the TV anymore; which is my greatest hobby. Maybe some of you might want to know that in the old days the favourite hobby of any child on this planet is to watch TV. Another one is reading but that is just to cover up the fact that you are a lazy bum with no future. It is a rare scene nowadays to see me glued to the TV screen and laughed or cried with the show. For one there are too many channels to choose from, and second, nothing really excites me. With the heavy censorship you could hardly enjoy the exclamation of a feeling such as love…because it’s always sealed with a kiss. And a distorted kiss is just like a monkey puckering her mate…so distasteful. During my college days in the US, I like to watch American football. The game runs for three to four hours and I stayed on to enjoy it for the whole time. I just could not imagine to do that nowadays. I guess life has changed as you grow up. But there are a lot of stupid drama on TV….samarinda, lestari etc. The same old stories with the same old faces doing the some old stupid storyline. I really hate them; it’s very rare to get a good drama on air.


Anyway I cherish my good times with friends and family. I’ve made a few mistakes but most of the time I feel that I was protected. Alhamdulillah. And now I can see myself to be that old man with a white kupiah manning a counter of a kedai runcit in the remote village somewhere in Kelantan …..what a wonderful life!

Time to reconnect?

The use of facebook , tweeter and other social networking has enable us to find and reconnect with old friends,ex-classmates, ex-students and ex-teachers. It is a very exciting moment to reconnect with the past again.After so many years of saying goodbye we have come back to meet again. I have enjoyed the moments in many occasions since I joined FB about a year ago. I have met my old friends again, my students from a decade ago and someone I met somewhere ( I was completely blank about this guy). The way the technology reconnects us all is amazing until you come down to the reality of things. I have experienced from A to Z of this reconnection thing; I mean, after a long while we saw each other again, reminiscent the old good times, consumed our newly re-established relationship with weekly meetings at the mamak stalls until we hated each other’s guts again. We since have gone separate ways again like we used to 20 years ago and God knows whether we have the time to meet again For now I am happy that we don’t see each other anymore. I realized that over the last 10-20 years we have changed. Life has taught us a lot of things about friendships, values, materials, goals ,thinking, and priorities. When we were a teenager/young adult a long time ago we hardly thought of those things; maybe the things we knew were to have good time and kick some ass for fun. Those were the “good times” that we are very excited to talk about when we reconnect. As if we try to escape from our hard and burdened adult life at the moment to the “easy,feeling times” of the yesteryears. There is nothing wrong; in fact I myself was so indulged into the excitements that I forgot to bring myself back to the current point and time. There was maybe a love episode that happened long time ago;and in that there must be love, hatred, broken hearts, and all ingredients of a good love episode. I did not realize that this episode would come back and haunt us all again. Now that we are married and all, a newly found long-lost love is not going to be pretty. The tears after the reunion is not going to heal the old wounds so easily; it will bleed silently with unbearable pain and agony. And believe me, a 40-year-old-man crying like a baby while driving back from a reunion dinner is not a pretty sight ( so don’t drag your spouse to a reunion party…a short story can be a very long one indeed!). There might also be other things start to pop up like the old scores that never been settled, some bullying incidents that you want to get back, loans that never been paid or punishment for things that you did not do. These things will prop up when the dust of excitement settled down.

One thing I learned was that our reconnection should be on our current terms; and not on “the old values”. If you are married now then the reunion activities should include the family; otherwise better not (just to make the story short). But then it’s no fun isn’t it, to have your kids running around when all you want to do is to recall that first love. A bit difficult to say exactly but you weigh down the goods and the bads and make your decision. This reunion thing is also a temporary bluff because after you realized that this guy or that guy never changed then you will have that half smile again and try to find the escape route to the men’s room. You will see someone try too much to show off that he/she is better than anyone else….duh! I really hate that someone.And the last thing to regret is that now you know you are so damn OLD! ….. nice to meet you again Bro!

A quiet afternoon in Madinah

It was still scorching hot but the soft wind had made it bearable to walk the short distance to the mosque. People were streaming towards the mosque giving a sign of Asr prayer is about to begin. I stopped for a while amidst the chaos with sounds that I could hardly understand. But from the gestures I knew they were hasting to close the shop and hurry to meet the calling azan. For days I have been astonished to their daily life; how everything surrounds the prayers and the holy mosque. They seemed to be here forever but everyday I came across them, they were practically running towards the mosque. It’s not like they are leaving tomorrow and need to complete everything by today, I wondered. As if everyday is not enough for them spent time in the mosque. The streets are almost deserted by now; I was still there standing where I was, kinda shocked and at the same awed by the sights and the scenes very strange to me. The streets of Madinah were always empty except for a few cars and taxis ferrying people around. I guess that area where our hotel was located, was not that populated. I remember the last time I was there we stayed at an area where people were jam-packed the streets almost every hour of the day. But then I was thinking and feeling how it was back then more than 1400 years ago. Were the streets as empty as today? Oh my God I was standing on the soil of Madinah, the place where it was all started. The syariat of Islam,the revelations,the struggles of the prophet, the life and death of sahabah. I felt so warm and awed with the opportunity that day. This very spot could be where Abu Bakr rd, Umar rd, or Ali or uthman or any of the sahabah or even the prophet saw himself used to rush towards the call for prayers.


Underneath the shadow of the sky-reaching hotel buildings, once lied the mud houses of the people of Madinah-the ansar; lined along this very street where I was standing. Were there many merpati flying on-and-off the city square in those days? I saw myself surprised with the sudden feeling of belonging to the place where I was absolute foreign. I made my move towards the mosque, the steps became faster and faster, I knew why I came to this place and who was the one to meet….my beloved prophet.


O Rasulullah
I wish I could see you to show the proper of your sunnah
Or hear your voice to listen to the revelations
Or touch your heart to feel the purity of mankind
Or look at your smile for things heavenly

O sayyideel mursaleen
How awful was it to be alone in that cave
Contemplating the call to save humanity
For the brutality of life they created
Lost amidst the ignorance
That the words from you , ya Rasulullah
Could save from the fire of tomorrow

O habibullah
I was standing outside your place
Looking up the walls and the lights
Nothing compared to your time
When nights were long and dark
So save from the danger
To say a few prayers to Allah
People were pushing and shoving
To have some space
To say their love and longing
For the one they never met
But forever indebted

KL and I (1)

My arwah Ayah was struggling to make ends meet and feed us all every single day of the year. I remember that very well since Ayah  went away a few years ago. Besides working at the railway station Ayah was  always talking about doing business. He would mix herbs, ground them with that old milling machine and "gotel" (mould with your fingers) into small bits that look like goat shit(tahi kambing) and sold them to his friends. So he did that for a while. Then he went into chicken rearing business where he built the chicken scoops all around our house until everything smelled like chicken shit. One time I remember him busy talking about doing business selling house wares in a far away city called KL. Wow! that must be one big city as Ayah kept talking about it day and night. He started buying the house wares soon after that and filled our living room with the stuff. They were that shining silverish thing that people use to wash hands----the small kettle with a basin. He bought it from Sg Golok and soon will take it to that big city called KL. I dreamt KL must be one nice place where people were tall, beautiful and wearing nice clothes.

I was about 7 years old when father got into that overcrowded mail train to KL. That was the most convenient transport to KL during that time. I was not aware of anybody going to KL by bus or by car----the Karak highway was notorious for being dangerous and difficult road to follow. So off he went to the place where he knew of no one and doing stuff that was uncommon to him. I remember for being so worried whether Ayah could make it there or not. He brought all of the stuff he bought with him; so how he could manage them all, I was thinking of Ayah. but I could do nothing other just waiting at the stairs for him to come back. School was suck so I would rather wait for Ayah  than being scolded at school for being so slow. Besides no body bothered to ask me why I was always sitting by the front door. In a few days Ayah was back. I was glad to see him back safe and sound. I followed him around to hear his stories about KL but he never had time to tell me anything. I just overheard when they were talking about it after the meal; sneaked between the adults I listened about how long and difficult the journey was to KL. Father brought the stuff from one shop to another like a door-to-door salesman. When people asked, "where is your lorry?", he would say" over there at the corner.....". He walked all day selling the stuff. he never told us where he slept or rested as we did not have any relative staying in KL.....not that I knew of.

When I bumped into people selling keropok in Shah Alam I would remember Ayah and the days he went off to sell those housewares in KL. it must be very difficult but the poverty and family back home would push these people to the limits. Do you think they make millions? maybe just enough to pay the tickets back plus a few ringgit extra. bt the most interesting part is how KL opened up opportunity for Ayah and us to dream for a better life. Every single person coming to KL with a dream----to live a good life. When father came back from Kl we had a bit of celebration and that would be all nothing much had changed. He went back to his old job at the station and we were pretty much back to our routines. I wondered if the bussiness stinct in KL had done anything good at all; or maybe he failed and accumulated big debt. Knowing Ayah , he never talked about that to the family and I never heard about trip to KL anymore until he's gone.

KL and I (2)

As a small kid from Pasir Mas, Kelantan, I always dreamt of KL as a city high above the clouds where people were rich , beautiful and elegant. I never had the opportunity to go there but wished someday would be able to walk down the famous street like Jalan TAR. KL , of course, was really a big-ass thing for me; well for anyone in Kelantan for that matter. If you were born in KL and came back for Hari Raya then everybody wanted to be friend with you; you would be regarded as clean, charming and highly intelligent. The KL accent would be highly prized and we the kampong boys listened to the way KL people talk like watching a live TV show; drooping and all without understanding a thing. So everbody wished to be from KL. In Kelantan , people from KL are regarded as “orang luar” (outside people); referring to those not accustom to our dialect and our way of life. That was some while ago as the term seems to be uncommon nowadays. But still when the Raya days came around ,the streets all over were clogged down and some foreign accents were in the air, we knew KL folks are back---“orang KL dah balik daa” ; we would somehow give ways and make ourselves invisible so that they can enjoy their balik kampong trip.

My first trip to KL was after the SPM exam when we were called for an English course in ITM (now UiTM). I remember for being so nervous as people said the trip was long and tiring. I bought a ticket on Mara Ekspres for the 8pm journey. During that time Mara just got a few new buses as the journey to KL had become more popular by bus. I looked at that new shining bus, elegantly parked in the station ready for the journey, and say to myself, “ I am finally free, I am going to KL”. The feeling was so big and enormous as if the world is mine. I don’t really remember why but that was the feeling. I guess as a student from a boarding school in Kelantan, I was so confined to the hostel and its little life and when the opportunity to go your own way like that trip; I was so relieved. The journey was not as bad as I was told; they got a TV on board showing a Hindi movie, so I was okay.That was also the time when Alleycat’s Sekuntum Mawar Merah started to become a hit. Those nostalgic moments will be back every time the song is on the air----aaaahhh feel so good ;I just want the song to stay on the air forever. We reached Puduraya by dawn and the hustle and bustle of city life had started to warm me up from the cold air on the bus. Now what? Where the heck is ITM? So I asked as the sun started to rise; revealing the true picture of KL.