fryingbananasinkualalumpur

Berlalulah sudah ramadan sebulan berpuasa
Tiba syawal kita rayakan dengan rasa gembira
Anak muda di rantauan semuanya pulang ke desa
Ibu dan ayah keriangan bersyukur tak terkira

Bertukar senyuman dan salam ziarah-menziarahi
Tutur dan kata yang sopan saling memaafi
Suasana hari raya walau di mana pun jua
Memberikan ketenangan dan mententeramkan jiwa

Anuar & Elina - Suasana di Hari Raya

Yes, as you can see, i am in the hari raya mood already. Dont know why, but during this time of the year, everybody seems so happy, including myself. It could be for various reasons actually, like going back to our hometowns (OK, well not everybody does that and even if you do, the endless crawl to go back through the jam isn't particular what i would describe as something to look forward to), or meeting up with family members that we haven't met in ages (again, sometimes not really a good thing), or could it be the one whole week off that most people get during the hari raya period (OK.. this could DEFINITELY be the reason why). But for me, the things that i look forward to on Hari Raya are:

1) Every first hari raya at my grandma's house, before we go out for our raya prayers, all my uncles, aunties, cousins and all gather at the main hall and then we read our "doa" together and have our raya break fast. Its just nice to see all of my relatives there (the ones that come, cos some of them alternate between the husband and wife kampungs every year) together from all around the country and then just chit chatting with them while having breakfast. Which brings me to...

2) The food. After a month of fasting, i have to admit that eating breakfast in the morning is something that i look forward to. Especially eating the food prepared during raya. My god, sitting down on the floor and mindlessly inserting indecent amounts of lemang and rendang ayam into your mouth isn't really a decent sight to see on raya morning, but what the hell. Then theres the ketupat with rendang or kuah kacang. Kuih bakar. These are what i usually target in the morning itself. Also, theres the endless amounts of cookies that people serve you when you go visiting your relatives and friends at their houses. My mum used to buy raya kuih by the lorry loads (OK, a bit of exaggeration here, but i was a lot). But nowadays, she doesnt seem to be interested anymore in buying that many kuih. She always complains that every year there's always loads of kuih going to waste and that we dont seem to finish it. Well, if you just bought all the good (note: good == anything with chocolate on it) ones, of course they will finish faster than you can say "chocolate chip cook.." . Ok thats enough of talking about food now. Am getting hungry already and its not even lunch time yet!

3) Open houses. Ok, although this point is quite closely tied to my reason number 2, there are other reasons why i like going there for the food. Yes, i admit i do go to open houses for the food. I mean like, especially the ones where they have at night and all these ppl catering the food. I've been to one friends house where the choice of food at her raya open house night was as large as the choice of food you would probably get at the Mandarin Oriental buffet bukak puasa! But food isnt the only reason i go. I get to meet all of my friends and relatives at these open houses. God knows who you'll meet at an open house since KL is getting smaller and smaller. I get to catch up with friends who i haven't met in a while, the ones i have neglected and all. It's all just a way to get us all back close to each other.

4) Raya ads. It shows how much we have moved from the traditional ways of celebrating raya, when we actually look forwards to seeing the hari raya adverstisements on television. The usual suspects will come up with creative and usually heart warming ads that sometimes you just seem to watch TV waiting for the ad to come out. I must say that the Petronas Deepavali ad was absolultely hilarious. Hats off to them. I wonder hows their raya ad this year.

Anyway, i have to be making a move. To whoever might be reading this, i wish you a "Selamat Hari Raya" and "Maaf Zahir dan Batin". I won't be around for the next week as i'll be i Melaka, i probably wont have any updates soon.

Laters..