Another family Raya gathering.

 Thurs 5.5.2022

 

Got up this morning at 4 to prepare myself for my first 6-day Syawal fast. The house is dead quiet even after I had completed my usual wirid after Subuh. Yesterday, the 3rd. Raya day, was a long one. Everybody pitched in. Everybody is still recovering apparently. That was a wonderful family Raya day, last held 2 years ago. Everybody wanted to make up for that. The success sign?  Every single morsel of food was consumed, except the lidi satay. 

Somehow we had set this 3rd. day thing over the years, and family members have appeared to accept this and graciously make space for it in their own busy schedule. And this includes those from Segamat, South, to Batang Kali, North. One family had even come back from England.  No formal invitation is ever issued. We would mention it in passing to a few. But they all make it, the brothers and sisters and their children and the grandchildren. Well, almost all, that is. That happens. Batang Kali and a few others were absent. But this was one raucous, happy occasion.

I had ordered 600 sticks of satay as part of the fare, but the kids said we never finished them before this, so I called Wak and halved the order. That was soon found to be a mistake. I had warned Wak to make sure the  perut is done well. And to bring enough kuah. Wak obliged. But both disappeared in no time.

Idah had made the other favourites, too, fortunately. But the soto and mee curry in the end also suffered the same fate. The less fortunate late comers had to contend with the other traditional dishes. But the Singaporeans made the most impact on the food supply. They not only came in numbers. They were also the more ravenous, the bloody kiasu ! (the late Bang Din married in Singapore, and these are the descendents). And Singapore didn't even follow Malaysia's Raya date !

I had expected some close friends to come. They didn't show up. They said later they had their own visitors. But I didn't miss them because from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. the house was full. For this time Idah decided to have everyone indoors. Before this we always put the food outside on the patio. So the sitting room, the living room, and corridor to the kitchen and the dining room were all used, and at the height of the party every space was filled. The two 2.5 hp a.c.'s and the 1.5 hp a.c. assissted by 6 stand-fans barely managed to keep the temperature bearable. We even hired 2 paid helps to keep the plates and cups clean and circulating. Idah was against using paper cups and plates. "Looks cheap" she insisted. We're not rich, but we're not cheap ! That's what she was saying.

Two of my besans also made it, but Ibrahim is still hospitalised after some chest pains. I made Suhaily sing on the karaoke set. She was a professional singer a long time ago, but the voice is till there.

I showed-off Dekna's diplomas hanging on the wall to her cousins. "First Class Honours !" I boasted.  Actually these cousins have also done very well in their studies, and one even went to the same premier Girls' College here in Seremban that Dekna went to. I just wanted to goad them. But my sister, the mother, just sneered "just like him". In fact there are doctors (one a neurosurgeon),  dentists, chartered accountants, lawyers (including a Shariah Court Judge), chemists, engineers, IT graduates, pharmacists, university lecturers, school teachers and even a nuclear scientist (working as a chemist) in the family, and that's those that I can recall as I write this. There are other neices & nephews in  the aviation and insurance sectors, and graduate army and police officers, and in the contract business, for instance. Why, there's even a golf pro ! And the places where they studied stretch from England to the US, covering India, Indonesia, Japan and Australia, and locally, of course. The point is, I've seen a very modest kampong family from Bukit Temensu from 7 decades ago now represented here in my humble home, for this joyous occasion that was denied us for 2 years because of diesease, and we have come a long way, I'm proud to claim.

One-by-one my family visitors left as the evening approached. The road in front of the house was all clogged up by all makes of vehicles, a testement to the extended family's success. I'm one proud member, savouring another family Raya gathering.

It' 10 past 8. The house is still asleep. Tired but happy.

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