My Raya Story Part Two
In my last entry, I wrote about how my raya is defined by three days - the day before 1st Raya, 1st Raya, and 2nd Raya. Day before Raya because of the cooking, 1st Raya because of the emotional salam session and 2nd raya because of the Annual Idris Clan Gathering.
Selit sikit with the compulsory tidur petang on the first Raya.
So when I celebrated my first Raya away from Mak, it kinda, redefined the meaning of Raya to me. Everything that I had experienced about raya all these while was totally different that what I experienced on the Raya of 2008. Which, I still remember second by second until today. Not that it's a bad thing though.
You see, my MIL is a super efficient lady who can get all the raya cooking done on the morning of 1st Raya itself. The first time, I remember I kept asking my husband, "Bila mak awak nak start masak rendang ni?" And I was very surprised when he said, "Esok pagi kot".
True enough, when I woke up on 1st Raya (which wasn't that late - it was 7-ish), everything was already served on the table, siap ketupat, rendang, kuah kacang, sambal sotong, ayam masak merah, ayam kari and a few other dishes that I can't remember. I was like, hmmm, either she woke up super early to prepare all those or, she has 8 pair of hands. The former one is of course, true.
Then they had their raya breakfast, headed to masjid for Raya prayers, came back at 10-ish and had their second round of Raya breakfast. Salam raya comes next, but theirs was entirely different than mine; theirs was all happy and lalalalala and gelak gelak, not a single tears was shed. It was refreshing to me.
After all that, they all siap siap for their annual househopping - it was about 11-ish. Apparently, it is their culture (Johorian) to visit rumah-rumah semua saudara mara. We started at 11-ish and came home at 11-ish too. The first day would be okay as the lauk raya is still abundant - makan lah kau what your heart desire. Dah 2nd day onwards, every house we visited served kuih raya with air gas (another culture that I do not comprehend) or hot tea (which I prefer). This continued till 4th - 5th raya; tiap tiap hari they will visit at least 2 houses - including next door neighbours. It is again weird to me because in Gombak, I never (or very very rarely visited - tak pernah terfikir nak visit pun?) my neighbours houses.
So like I said - that particular raya redefined my meaning of Raya. I was rarely brought for house hopping that I don't understand why I need to do it. Probably because I did not have to, sebab I will meet my cousins on the second of Raya, every year. Even if my parents did bring me balik kampung, it would be for only that one day / week and probably lagi sekali the next week. Followed by other visits around KL, for one house sekali keluar. We didn't visit a lot of houses, you can say. Which is probably one of the contributing factors why I became the anti-social person that I am today. =)
The new routine was hmmm... . Took quite a while to get used to, but after 3 years it started to get easy especially when Hakimi is enjoying it. I am glad, because I don't want my children to be socially awkward macam mak dia.
One little problem tho, I cannot quite enjoy this year's house hopping - I get tired very easily that yesterday, I accidentally dozed off at one of the houses. And I slept in the car in between the houses. Malu wooo.
Some people that I spoke to said I had sad Raya. To each his own, I guess.
Nowadays, my Raya is only defined by who I celebrate it with. It is Raya to me as long as I have my husband and my kid. Even if I get to Raya in KL every year pun it would not mean a thing if I don't have these two by my side. =)
Raya in Gombak, Us + 2.0 with Nenek |
Raya in Johor, Us + 2.0 with Johor Family |
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