Raya beckons us..
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| Ini bukan kuih tart Mak... |
1. We get new clothes...usually a pair of the traditional garb and 2 sets of the others, perhaps a dress and later when I'm older, my preferred pants and tops.
2. We shopped in Singapore for Raya...the advantage of living in JB. The whole family, all 8 of us will cramped into Abah's Peugeot and pepagi buta will cross the border and will not be back home selagi kedai tak tutup. One year we discovered a Japanese department store, Yokoso which actually opens 24-7...Parah!! Mak would buy her curtains, cushion covers, chair backs, all cheap-cheap from Sungei Road at that time...I remember traipsing CK Tang looking at dresses and pinggan mangkuk..And after all the shopping is done, we would congregate to Arab Street to have our feast of Nasi Briyani and Singapore Murtabak..My late Abah would be all smiles looking at his brood devouring the food..
3. The third week of Ramadan would see Mak getting us to raya-clean the house, We used to stay in a semi-detached government quarters with lots of windows and my brothers would be the vested parties who. would be climbing on stools getting the glass windows cleaned. When we moved to Mak's current home and my brothers had left for college, me and my sister took over this duty. I never hated having 2 bathrooms in the house instead of one in the old home and the fact that this house has more windows. On the eve of raya, we would put up new curtains, new cushion covers, everything new lah..and my parents would be busy cooking the Raya feast till the wee hours of the morning walaupun tiap-tiap tahun they keep telling us "tahun depan kita siap awal lagi dari ni"
4. Ramadan was twice as fun. My late Abah has always been known to be a foodie and all of us took after him...every buka puasa our table would be full of the food that Mak prepared (no pasar Ramadan in the early days of my childhood).. We would usually have more than 3 types of drinks based on all our requests..after buka semua tersandar tapi Abah tetap senyum...Paling best soya bean and tow foo fah from Jalan Segget..yums..
5. My Abah also loves buying mercun and bunga api for us. Those days you'd hardly hear people getting burned by fireworks..My abah usually buys the mercun in bulk and keeps the stash away from us, taking them out bit by bit daily...Aku ada ration mercun dulu!!
6. Our baju kurung was never bought ready made. Mak would get them stitched by tailors way before the raya mood even sets in.. for all of us including my brothers. The materials for the baju melayu would've been bought on an earlier trip to Singapore, together with the can lychees , the apples, oranges and the chocolate stash that . we get from there as well. My brothers' and Abah's baju Melayu would be stitched at the JB prison where Abah used to worked. Come to think of it, we got lots of stuff done there...ironing, dry cleaning (the whole dhoby thing). My Mak had it easy man...
7. Not only Mak cooked us different stuff daily for buka puasa (btw, we almost never eat white rice for break fast so she has to think of all the different noodles to cook, her home made roti canai, lontong, soups, flavoured rice like nasi ayam, nasi tomato bagai AND the different kuih as well), she would also be preparing all her raya cookies during the day. And during the early days we didn't have the mixer so all of us will take turns beating the butter, sugar and egss for her pineapple tarts until later when Abah bought her the Moulinex mixer from Singapore. We had muscles on the biceps just from this. Standard fare of Mak's cookies would include tarts, nestum cookies, biskut kaykaot (Quaker Oats haha..), Cornflakes, her famous steamed fruit cake and sujee...yumsss...
8. On raya day until I was 12, when we moved to the current home from the government quarters, me and my sister with our gang, kids from the neighbourhood, would go and 'collect'. So pepagi buta sesudah subuh, in our baju kurung we would go from house to house to collect duit raya..Assalamualaikum, assalamualaikum...ada satu tahun...sudah pergi satu rumah India..hahaha...malu seyh! Gigih ni dalam panas berjalan satu kampung...This would be the only time that my parents would let us go further away from home. Lepas tu malam-malam kira duit raya...This would go on till the 2nd day of raya, tapi on the 2nd day standardnya kita pakai baju moden..hehe..and make sure tak pergi rumah yang sama as the day before. So the strategy is to go and ronda rumah-rumah yang paling jauh from our own house on the first day and move inwards on the 2nd day..tak tahan..kecik2 dah ada strategy.
9. On Raya morning, it was a normal practice in our homes to have an almost formal bermaafan session. This would happen right after breakfast after the man and boys come back from the Raya prayers. My parents would be sitting at the sofa while all six of us would line up and one by one, we would seek forgiveness from our parents for all our wrongdoings that year. And these sessions usually would see all of us cry...kalau tak nangis memang hati batu ar...haha
10. And our house, at least till the 3rd day of Raya, would be receiving guests non-stop, as my cousins, auntys and uncles thronged the home to visit..
Ah...I look forward to raya every year, if not for the festivities as we hardly do half of the above, more so for remembering the best moments of my life...
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