..pakmat's haj..

..doing the pilgrimage to Makkah in the year 2011 was, without a doubt, the ultimate high in pakmat's life...never a jetsetter or a globetrotter, it was the first time that pakmat ventured far beyond the comfort of his shell...the well-wishes that he carried with him saw him set foot on a strange yet familiar land, more than 8000 kilometers away from home, along with a few million others of his faith, to converge on the House of God, Baitullah, and gathered on His plain, the plains of Arafat...

..it has left an indelible mark on his body, mind and soul...he left on the 15th of October, 2011 resolute in his affirmation that God is Great...and came back after 47 days on the 30th of November, the same year, more resolute in his affirmation that God is Greater...

..others before him had made the journey...as there will be others  after him..his children and his children's children...going through their own experiences, making their own private memories...similar in the overall, but unique to each and every one of them...as it was with pakmat...

...words are so inadequate..as it is with pictures...and so he wrote with his heart...scattered all over his blog...his memories interspersed with other jottings...until yesterday..he gathered all posts of his haj, and put them together in another blog...posting them like a book...as a record of his journey...for his children and grandchildren to read...for his friends...for anyone at all who would bother or care to...

..my hijrah...please click here..

..these days, those days..

..a song pakmat grew up with..from a fumbling youth to a married man..

..these days with my children, nieces and nephews, I used all the applications that come along with a smartphone...viber, wechat, whatsapp and, of course, facebook...I store my pictures online through picasa, dropbox and such...my blog is a form of maintaining a journal...stories about my past, mainly, my children and my life.,.

..I can say without reservations, that I am active in the cyberworld...I have loads of friends there, of which I am in constant contact...amost all I have never met...but I see their lives unfolding before me as they see mine...almost intimately...sharing their highs and grieving their lows and loss...my children think I am cool..and I said, no..its not so much being cool, but just a matter of keeping up with all of them...whilst having the privilege of having friends from every corner of the globe and exchanging ideas with them...it keeps me mentally alert..and at 68, the only thing that I can traipse around with is with my mind...

..and I cannot imagine it being otherwise....growing up in the fifties, I had none of these things kids today took for granted... our motor training was walking around with a bamboo pole inserted into another shorter pole stuck in the ground...cognitive skills was acquired through peek-a-boo sessions...and later, a little bit older, games were cops and robbers or cowboys and injuns..and much later, when I have acquired the ability to read, it was books..of every kind..from Henry Miller to Enid Blyton, even Elizabeth Arden...

...it was in 1970 that I met my first wife...courting in the days when communication was not instant has its drawbacks...back then, even telephones of the black and bulky kind were a rarity...of course, its difficult to rendevous or arranged trysts without texting or instant messaging...but you become innovative and daring...pakmat deluged her with letters...letters carefully written, and posted with  ten cent stamps affixed on the envelopes..addressed to her school, to her home, to anywhere I thought she was...quoting anything from Blake to Shakespeare...

..chatting was by waylaying her on her trisha on her way to school...for an exchange of a few words...a smile, maybe, and she was on her way again, and I was left struggling to restart my Vespa...there was no Facebook or KFC..no malls or video calls...the only way to meet was to scoot up her door...and hoped that she was home, and her mother in a friendly mood...

...those were wistful times...but today, I don't think I can survive a day without the internet and my smartphone...

..relatives far removed..

..we are fond of saying that if we did not get to know of our relatives...uncles, aunties, cousins, fourth cousins...and those far removed...that if we did not try to know them, then there are no better than strangers...and with todays trend of leaving and uprooting ourselves from our home villages and seeking a livelihood somewhere else, chances of getting to know and be close with our relatives are getting slimmer..and harder...we are closer to those around us, our friends...

..and so it was  with pakmat...Lord knows how many relatives that I had, whatever side I care to mention...children of my brothers of common parents numbered more than twenty...brothers and sisters sharing a common father, for the late Hamid, my father, as also his sons, was known to have several wives..God knows how many there are...my half-sister in the city...there is no, as the Kelantanese are fond of saying, 'gimari' among us...we do not relate and we do not communicate...hence the absence of 'gimari'..


..it was with a tinge of regret that on the night of the tahlil for my late brother, Adnan, where all his children gathered, pakmat hardly knew any of them...and they are my very own nephews and nieces....we were all busy with our own lifes...as pakmat was busy trying to find my own little plot on this little piece of earth, that I forgot I have relatives...I went my separate way...and it was selfish of me...it was downright arrogant...for my children do not have the apportunity to get to know their cousins, uncles and aunties....my actions denied them from knowing them...

..so I told my children that things are about to change...I am gonna bridge this self-imposed gap...through Facebook, through Whatsapp...through normal calls...and through visits and invitations...for, yes, we share the same sky and the same earth...there is no reason why we should not meet...for we are, after all, relatives...