my eldest brother..

..my eldest brother is 72 years old, infirmed, widowed and as from two months ago emplaced in an old folks home in Pengkalan Chepa...and pakmat tries to visit him  at least once a week...some kind souls, cousins and relatives would credit into my account monies, token sums, mostly, and pakmat controls the flow to him...ensuring him that he is sufficient and not left wanting...he once told me that it is humbling when you are broke...and watched with downcast eyes as others buy 'nasi berlauk' and 'kerabu' for breakfast...and  I said, yes, I know the feeling...

...sometimes as we banter and joke around that concrete table under a wizened tree, I could not help but see in him me...life has not been too good for him..now frail and aging he is very much alone...he is homeless and penniless...oft times when we met, I rebuked him his past mistakes and foolishness...and oft times we just laughed together....not much can be salvaged from a receding past...but there were tears in his eyes as he guffawed showing a single tooth from shining gums...but the Lord knows best...and may his end be with iman...

...

..the journey in pictures, part 2...Arafat, Muzdalifah, Mina, Medinah, Jeddah and home..

..wukuf in Arafat..

..jabal rahmah in the background..

pak pa from Bachok..

..muzdalifah..reading the koran..

..muasim tunnel..2.6 km long..

..cropping of hair in mina after the stoning of jamrah kubra..
..tahlul awal..

..mina..mourning the death of the wife,
..pakmat chided him for smoking..and was told later that he had
just lost his wife...

..queueing the loo.. sense of humour helps..

..the journey to madinah.. with second driver taking a nap..

..masjid nabawi..

..azan, the call to prayer..

..boarding the bus for Jeddah..last leg for home..

..madinattul hujjaj, jeddah..final stop before home..
..haji abdul rahim and family..

..king abdul aziz hajj airport..following the flag..

...the plane that took us home...

..trying to be a good muslim..

...approaching 70, I am still working on trying to be a good muslim...and I think it is laughable that at my age I am still at the attempting stage...should not someone of 67 be smug and snug that he is a good muslim?...

...I am trying to be a good muslim in between Ramadans...I was a better muslim in the fasting month...not really good, but better...in that I tried to be more forgiving of people...speak less and not to give in to mindless and uncontrollable laughter...I also tried to keep my eyes down...tried no to see what they willingly revealed...and, of course, I tried to be kind and charitable..to children, especially...to the cats and animals...to the plants and trees...

...I am also trying to be a better father to my children...but most have grown and have families of their own...so I tried to be a better grandfather...the only grandfather that I remembered was my mother's father, tokayah...but he never put me on his lap or hugged or kissed me....as I often did to mine...and I hope that one day, when they all have up and grown, they will remember wistfully this cranky grandfather of theirs...and the kittens that I placed into their little fingers...and the kisses that I smudged upon their faces..

...and I am also trying to be a better husband...and that, being the polygamist that I was, is nigh impossible...but now that I back on a monogamous path again, I am trying to be a better ex-husband to my ex-wives...its not easy, of course..much has flowed under the bridge...I am trying to be more cordial...open and communicable...

..I have a couple more years before touching 70... I might just reach it and go a little bit beyond...until then, I am on this path of trying to improve myself and be a better person by 70...the Lord willing..

..youthful ways..

...as with the ways of youth, friendships tend to be fleeting and short..no matter how intense they may be once...when pakmat came back to Kota Bharu in late 1969, I was pushing 23 and a stranger...but Kota Bharu was too swinging a town and pakmat too gregarious for him not to be accepted by the in-crowd of boys...boys responsible for making things happened  then...Kota Bharu was like a ripened fruit, waiting just for the moment when it would fall to the ground...Britz Park has closed down...but there were a number of night clubs operating through the nights that helped maintained the beat...but they were fighting against an ebbing tide....

.Haji Wan Salaman...a pic from his youthful days..
pic borrowed from blog Ayu The Sun..

...bands, three guitars and a drumset, maybe a keyboard, was the in-thing..kugiran were formed at a drop of hat...but two rose  above the miasma..boys with talent a cut above the others...with names like Suara Kilat and The Streaks..pakmat was part of the scene...yes, pakmat remembers them...Wan Salman, singer and keyboardist, Yusof, lead guitarist, Asran, bassist, and Opa on drums...throughout the year that we were together we were  like brothers...moving around in a pack......and a love for music the bond...

..but all too soon we went our separate ways...life has a way of starting anew with marriage and children...with pakmat it was several marriages...those days of carefree bachelor days were forgotten...when you faced the tempest of polygamy, there is not much time to reminisce your youth...

..but sometimes in the first week of Ramadhan, Haji Wan Salman called...Opa had died...solat jenazah at Masjid Telipot after Zohor...as I hang up, a mist cleared...and I saw a gangly youth a few years younger than me...pleasant and easy with his grin and laughter...Opa was a maestro on drums...though we never met as an adult, I remember you, Opa...and I remember you well...May the Lord includes you among those He blessed..May the Lord forgives you your sins...and mine...and places you in His Jannah...

...

...my late mother, abit on father..and brethrens..

...I never get to know my late father...there never was any images or pictures of him that I can relate to...he must have died in 1944, during the Japanese occupation....those 'makan ubi kayu cicah dengan budu' days...I remember my late mother telling that she was carrying me for two months or thereabout when he died....and she was at the height of her morning sickness, puking everywhere with endless bouts of dizziness... a few years short of  thirty, her other two sons would be about 4 and 2 years old...

...she must have suffered as any young mother would...widowed with three children with one an infant, she must thought that life had given her a bad deal....I have no idea how I was born, or exactly where...but it was agreed that it was in Lemal, Pasir Mas, Kelantan...my late father must have a house there, being a Ranger with the Forest Department that he was...

.. when the Japanese left in August, 1945, she must have picked up whatever pieces of her life that was left, her children scattered, and with herself suited she tried a round of marriages....which failed a couple of times until she met the late Ismail, a tailor, who gave her a daughter and some stability into her life until he died sometimes in the mid-sixties...

..by then, she had handed me over to her younger brother, the late Zakaria, a government officer who served most of his years as an Assistant District Officer in various districts of Perak...and so it was that I grew up in Kuala Kangsar, Parit and Ipoh....away from my mother and my two brothers and halfsister...

..the house that I came back to in late 1969 is now in ruins...the soul of the house is no longer there...like my brother, Johan, it is wobbly at the knees, standing uncertainly upon the earth that awaits to reclaim it...even though the laughters and tears of the past still ring in my ears, it is receding...

..today, I found myself again at Jalan Gajah Mati..as I often did upon paying visits to my destitute brother...but something made me took that extra steps to the house...and for a brief moment as I stood there, I could almost hear my mother calling out to me...exhorting me not to be out late...

..in Your Hand is the kingdom, Lord... and Your Power is over all things..You who created life and death that You may try us...unto you I seek forgiveness...forgive them all, Lord...

..Ramadhan nears..

..Ramadhan is near...I can feel and almost see it...Ramadhan follows Syaaban, and today is the 5th of Syaaban....and the wife decided that we need a bigger rice-cooker...all the children will be back, she said...I smiled...her second son just started work in the city...but I bought her a bigger pot, anyway...

...pakmat looks forward to every Ramadhan...its the month he gauges the span of a year...its when he takes stock of himself...recounting the steps he had taken from the last..

...it was a momentous year, 1432...he made that journey to Masjidil-Haram...and all the rituals of haj...and it has moved him beyond words...and he remembered being depleted of feelings, laid bare to the very quick...seeing traces of the Prophet on whatever he cared to cast his eyes on...

..with every new  Ramadhan, he is a year older from the last...his body has started to creak and groan..but it has not hindered him from his daily chores and prayers...Ayam still wakes him up in the wee hours of morn, usually a few minutes after five...and the fresh, oxygen-filled air of the morning invigorates him as he opens the window..sometimes to a benign moon...

..and as with every Ramadhan, he wonders...will he last through this one?..and be around for another?..

..a crab of a father..

..you know the saying about crabs trying to teach their young crablets to walk straight?....well, as a father I am a crab....on most counts, I am guilty of asking my children not to do the things that I have done..for like most fathers, I want them to be better than me...and to avoid the mistakes that I have made...and so, I told my sons not to smoke...and they countered by saying that I was a heavy smoker my self..yes, I was, it has not done me any good except to wheeze in my old age...I told them not to miss their daily solat..and they say, papa started praying only in his late years..and I said, yes, and it has not done me any good, either...I told them to be choosy about choosing life partners..and they say papa was a polygamist..and I say, I do not want you to be one...I told the girls not to go after married men..and they say mama married one...it hit me that I have done all those things that I asked them not to..I am that proverbial crab...and this old, wheezing crab realised that no matter how much he loved his children, there is a limit to his exhortations...life is not about not doing this and not doing that...life is about making mistakes and learning from it...sometimes its about learning from others mistakes...for a father will continue loving his children no matter the mistakes...

..

..pakmat's id..

..I was abnoxious as a kid..I was told that by surviving elders who had the misfortune of taking care of me when I was young...I was also dark..shades of darkness that earned me the nick 'Mat Hitam'...and 'berkudis'...the whole family of skin diseases..and I still bore a crater-like scar on my left leg...it must have been painful then...

..but I do not have too many skeletons in my cupboard...I found it is better to keep an open door policy..and just let the sun shines in and the darkness out...life should be an opened book...not that my book is worth flipping through...keeping secrets about the self is not one of my strong points...as when I had a second wife, and tried to hide it from the first...or my third and tried to keep her hidden from my second...I failed...some stench are too much to shoo away with lavender spray...

..I am poor at controlling my facial expressions...I look angry when I am angry, sad when crestfallen and worried when I am worried...I do not know how to hide my pain...but I know how to share my joy...cats and grandchildren are my constant source of enjoyment...since grandchildren have a way of staying with their parents, I spared some devotion to cats...

..pakmats constant source of happiness..

...of course there are a few regrets..its like looking at the beginning of a rain bow...and seeing all those colours  that emanated from it...some hues may be a bit much..you have added in too much colour as you brushed...with some areas not brushed at all...but its ok....in your mind, acceptable...life is what it is because of the way you are...and, endlessly, you give Him your thanks...

..looking back..

..Auji, just before leaving for Kolej Matriculasi Johor..

..having gone beyond dreams, you do not plan  ahead of a  decade when you are already 67....but you have memories..and hindsight may make you rue those foolish and foolhardy deeds...but if I am asked whether I would still be a polygamist, and marry those women whom I had married, I cannot truthfully answer...but being made in the mould that I am, in all honesty I would answer, 'Yes,' to the the first and second...as to the third, maybe I should not have...but life is not about rewindable reels...

. ...to pakmat, it is always about numbers....and today, I watched my first daughter from my second marriage, Auji, walked confidently towards me in her mother's high-heels...she is my 8th daughter... it was her second day as a relief teacher and her first high-heels...she looked adult beyond her years, whilst clutching a pile of books...

...having only obtained a CGPA of 3.05, she is awaiting entrance into any university that would accepts her..she is still unsure of what she wants to be...but not teaching...the kids are too unruly...maybe a marine biologist...and I smiled...learned how to swim first...

...and stay away from others husbands...no matter how they swim..

..children and wakil rakyat..

..the bridge near pakmat's home..decorated with flags..

...conversations these days tend to gravitate towards politics...and, most times, pakmat will steer clear from them, not wanting be dragged into a whirlpool of agitations...although I have my opinions on them, I rather not  be entangled into such discussions..but once in a while, these village folks asked questions that set this coot's mind into gear..as one day, at Chuan, the goldsmith's shop, this Pak Haji, who interrupted my reverie with thestaronline, with, 'What would you looked for in a Wakil Raayat?'..

..I would, of course, rather talk about my children..as most coots do..and I realised then, that I have 3 children in the city of KL, a son and two daughters...there is nothing special about that...almost everyone these days have children in KL...but pakmat's three are all of different mothers, with the two girls my eldest and youngest and the son my number ninth child who is also my third son...they are on my family list on fb, through which I am kept abreast of their going-ons..

..but I try not to impose my political views on my children..or extol the virtues of polygamy..but I will tell them whom I am voting for..and why...

..as to what would I looked for in a people representative...I would rather he not be a polygamist..it is easy to lie when you are one..

..agitation and lethargy..

..I have not been blogging lately..lethargy sets in after a while....the political scene contributed in a small way in that I am in a constant state of agitation...but there are no excuses for inaction...and there are  much that I would like to write about...whilst favorite subject is polygamy, there are other things that have affected me  and had left a deep impression...must be my trip to Makkah late last year...it has changed me without me realising it...I looked inward more...not that I like much what I saw, but I accept my flaws and weaknesses...and try to overcome them...I have become more forgiving with people..more so with my children...though there were times I still blew my top, I tried to keep them short...

..physically I am not too bad..waist at 30 inches and weighing in at 60 kilos..bp under controlled and no other known diseases detected...of course, given half a chance, I would like to grow back my teeth...but there are certain plus points in being edentulous...you avoid hard food, indirectly resting your stomach...

..financially, of course, I would like to have more money...but then, who wouldn't....I am still paying for the foolishness of youth, but its ok...those little things kept me agile..for no matter your age, you need agility to balance your finance...

..looking at my children, I have nothing much to brag about..to my mind they will not shake the world...but I am happy with them all the same...and proud, too...they have chosen their partners, careers and their path in life and, as in every one else, there are ups and there are lows...and to my mind, they are coping well..not all turned out they way we want them to be or they way they want to them to be...as in my forth daughter, Ebok...

..Ebok with her two children, eldest sister and pakmat, at
her second chance..her engagement...

who married immediately after  her graduation...I said no, but she said yes...two children later, she said no..and she was lucky...the boy/husband divorced her...and now she is busy with her second try at marriage..and I said learn your lesson well, for not everyone are blessed with second chances..

..the journey in pictures..part one..Makkah before Arafat....

..friends, neighbours and relatives a visiting before departure..

..Kuala Terengganu Airport..

..first view of Jeddah..

..the clock tower from our Maktab..2 km away..

..the march to Haram..

..resting in between prayers..

..Hilton Towers..

..Haram's maintenance crew..

..the walk back after isyak..along Ibrahim Khalil Road..

..pakmat found a lot of cats in Makkah..

.. a room mate died before completing the Haj..solat jenazah after solat subuh..

..camels we found on the way back to maktab after burial in Sharaya..

..Makkah suburbs..

..Haji Mahmood, a fireman from Syria..

..the road to Arafat..