..sweet sorrow..

..the rain came early this year in Bachok..the days and nights are cooler..already in his fifth day of fasting for the non-obligatory six days fast in the month of Syawal, the oldster felt relaxed..he had partaken his sahur alone...in the wee hours before dawn..the missus being indisposed after a stint at the hospital a day earlier... a minor operation of the left eye..removal of a growth that threatened..pterygium..

..only the cats, a blind tabby with her surviving two-month old kitten, stirred..as he tried to enjoy the self-prepared hot bowl of canned soup, by dipping bread, he remembered the sahurs of Ramadhan..every member of the family crowding a round table..the unceasing chatter of siblings rivalry..and the clatter of utensils from neighboring kitchens..and houses all lit up..and even at that wee hours, sporadic reports of fireworks..

..traffic in Bachok has thinned out..from whence they came, they had returned..bringing back with them their parents hopes and dreams..as they had traveled back home on a prayer..they had started their returned also on a prayer...with their hearts full of joy, tinged with sweet sorrow, and boots filled with little things hastily packed by grandfathers and mothers, for their grandchildren and children..

..Ramadhan has receded into quiet memory..and with Syawal eleven days along the way, a brand new year awaits..

..as he finished his bowl of soup and recited the doa for tomorrow's fast, he silently prayed..grant me longevity, O Lord, that I may greet Ramadhan's return...

..the magic of raya..

..yes, it was a joyous raya..my children came, along with my grandchildren..nieces and nephews..brothers and sisters-in-law.. and neighbours..

.it was riotous, with the children milling and running, crying and shouting..fighting over raya money...

..there was also a little drama... played out in front of all the children and adults alike, when my second and my sixth daughters, mothers of two children each, kissed and hugged, and cried and patched up, over their almost two month quarrel... over something trivial and forgotten but the hurt remembered..

..yes, for this old man the magic of raya was still there...even at 64..it was, after all, a time to forgive..and for this oldster, seeing my 4 adult daughters and a son from a previous marriage, mingling freely with their other 4 brothers and sister, children from a second marriage, and calling affectionately their stepmother Cik Ani, the joy of raya was complete..

..Praises be to Allah..life has a way of not turning out the way we wanted..but whatever way it turned out, that was what Allah had meant it to be..

..raya ramblings..

..the raya songs is getting to me..

..sometimes, we just do not see things in perspective..God created this universe so vast that it is nigh impossible for man to circumvent it..and He filled it with trillions upon trillions of stars and other mysterious objects that man just cannot keep track of it..and never ceased to wonder over it..

..and somewhere within this vastness is a tiny speck of dust that we called home...earth..the only one we know, and the only one we have..

..yet, we chose to fight over every little thing that we thought is ours..we fought over a lil bit of land, over a lil bit of water..we declare war over a matter of language,.over creed, race and over every petty little thing..sometimes over nothing...we see enemies lurking in every shadow..

..we failed to see that this whole planet earth, this tiny speck of dust, is ours to keep..and it is ours to share, and care...for we are His caliphs..but our time on it is so brief..

..and so, with the end of Ramadhan near...and IdilFitri just around the corner, I am standing to be counted..I am standing before God, in all humility, seeking His forgiveness..for all my failures and sins..for my misdeeds and transgressions..

..before my wife and ex-wives I stood, too..please find the grace in your hearts to forgive me..I am not the best of husbands..nor the man you all thought I was...I do not have the qualities that you all seeked..I am just what I am borned to be..a man without pretensions, trying hard to carry the mantle of caliphship and faltered trying...

..and before my children..for I am not the best of fathers...and there are times when my ego blinded me to your needs..actions only after bouts of regrets..this old man is standing before you now..please forgive your father his inadequacies..his faults and his wrongs..

..and I stand before my friends..forgive me if I did not turned out to be the friend that I am supposed to be..

..selamat Hari Raya IdilFitri...

..talking excrement..

..once in a while, this old coot made trips to Kota Bharu, which is about 20 kilometers from home in Bachok..ten years ago those trips were a daily affair, and in my Peugeot 405, I covered the distance in 15 minutes, sometimes less...

..now in a Kancil 660, I took 45 minutes to one hour.. at a fair clip of 80 kph..but traffic has quadrupled..and jams in Kubang Kerian are a common feature..more so with the Ramadhan Bazaar near the traffic lights drawing the crowds and aggravated with this peculiar Kelantanese habit of parking their cars as near as possible to where they intend to shop..

..on a trip back with the missus one Friday evening, after getting a week supplies of groceries and knickknacks from Tesco, we were caught in a slow crawl just before the bazaar..we were talking, yet not really talking..a family with three very young children in tow was trying to cross the road..

..suddenly the missus became nostalgic..she remembered her eldest son, Afiq, now 22, when he was three..he was a bit sickly when small..and prone to diarrhea..there was this particularly bad case when he spewed shit all over the house..and the missus remembered how she went through the house with a rag and a pail, collecting shit as she went..

..she chuckled as she told me that as a girl she could never stand excrement of any kind..be it human or animal..she would vomit..hmm..I did not know that..she never told me that before..and the way she handled all the shit from our five children without a shudder, I would never would have thought that possible..

..I looked at this woman whom I married when she was 26 and me at life's beginning 40..after decades of marriage, we are comfortable even talking about shit..

..how come?..I asked..she pondered upon an answer..by now the family with the three kids in tow had safely crossed the road..their son had a fair resemblance of Afiq as a kid..

..oh, I don't know..she said, without looking at me, and without realising it, she spoke for all the mothers when she continued, 'somehow when it is your own life and blood, it doesn't feel like shit'...

..I was silent for a moment..thinking.. ..the measure of a mother's love..unreserved and unconditional..shit and all..

..

..facial mask and Ramadhan Bazaar..

..not having much to do during the Merdeka holidays, I thought perhaps it was the proper time for me to check up on the Ramadhan Bazaar at Beris Kubur Besar, Bachok..I heard there is a young couple there who operates a fish-grill stand..grilling mainly torpedo scads..ikan cencaru..topped with sambal..and they are attracting the crowds daily..seemed that their grilled torpedoes are out of this world..

..it will be crowdy, the missus warned..but I was prepared for that, showing her my newly picked facial-mask..no, it was not the N-series, but good enough..and so, armed with a facial-mask, I left for the bazaar..

.the missus was right, as she usually was..there was nowhere to park and the crowd was bumper-to-bumper..but I waded in..zeroing towards the torpedoes..the smell of grilled fish and smoke and a myriad of other smells overwhelmed..even through my facial-mask..I raised my hand to adjust it.

..and then it hit me...wham! ..I froze in my tracks..scanned the crowd slowly..a gradual pan with my right artificial lense..I was the odd one out..no one was wearing facial-masks..except this old geezer...no wonder that sweet young thing gave me a lingering glance..in a sea of anxious and hungry faces, I was the only Zorro in reverse..what the heck..

..so...what happened?..what happened to the sometimes swine-flu, sometimes H1N1 scare?..I thought the number of deaths were mounting..there was even a suggestion that the government declare a state of emergency..

..I bought my fish and slowly beat a retreat..

..dialogue in a supermarket..

"..I am sorry, sir.. but the counter for men is over there.."
"..but that counter is crowded..I'm just paying for this apples..and you're not serving anyone..."
"..sorry, sir..I can't serve you..you have to go to the men's counter..
"..what's the diff?..that counter also has a lady cashier.. and you're not serving anyone.."
"..I'm sorry sir..only women here.."
"..here, take this apples..I'm going home.."

..on the eve of Ramadhan..

..and so, that night, on the eve of Ramadhan, he sat along with the other members of the mosque..awaiting the bilal's call to terawih..

..his mind flew back to a similar night a year ago..when he had raised his hands in prayer.. seeking from his one and only God, Allah..

''O Allah...

..grant me the time and the space that I may savour this Holy Month of Ramadhan..in peace and in harmony..with my family and Muslim brethren...and forgive me my sins..

..grant me the will to be charitable that I might seek from You Your bounty.... the grace to overlook and forgive others' faults..that You may overlook and forgive mine...let me be magninamous that I may seek from You Your blessings..

..and as I rested my body from food during the fast, rest also my mind from dwelling too much on worldly pursuits..fill my nights with Your Light and my days with Your Guidance...

.. accept all the little deeds that I have done..that I may strived to do more..

..above all, O Allah, accept my repentance.. I have commited great sins..and You are The Great Forgiver..."

..and again that night, he raised his hands in prayer..that Allah may grant him the space and the time for him to savour yet another Ramadhan...InsyaAllah...God Willing...

..a cat story..

..do cats mourn their dead?.. I've heard of elephants..but cats..?..no.. I don't think they are capable of such profound feelings..being mainly selfish creatures, cats just love to curl up on laps whilst purring contently away to gentle strokes and rubs..

..until one day this old coot was proven otherwise..cats do mourn their dead..our favorite tabby, Ayam does..she just showed it to me this morning..and it leaves this sentimental old geezer in tears...

..it is common knowledge that Ayam had a thing going with Bobi, our neighbour's handsome tom..they were often seen frolicking in some corner of the garden..being just cats, their pairing does not raise an eyebrow..our neighbours joked about it..that their tom is spending more of his time in our compound then theirs..cats in love, I said, to everyone's amusement..

..a week ago, Bobi died.. from mysterious causes.. tongue jutting out and surrounded by faeces and urine..the owner, a lady principal at one of the town's secondary school, and her 16-year old daughter were gutted...they had him buried on a vacant lot next to their house..her daughter marked the grave with a leftover piece of floor tile..

..a few days later we noticed that Ayam is acting a bit strange..on being let out of the house in the wee hours of the morning as I opened the door for morning prayers, Ayam did not return for breakfast as she normally does..ditto for lunch..she went missing during the day..returning only in the evenings as I leave the house for Magrib prayers..

..she is always seen around our house, said the neighbours..she is missing Bobi, they jest..and we all laughed...

..until this morning, when I let her out of the house.. I decided to tail her..see where she goes.. she walked softly through the small back gate..stopping every now and then..looked around..saw me following and meowed softly at me..she knows where she is going..and so I followed her with my eye, as she crossed the road and stop ontop of where they had Bobi buried..she paused for a while..rubbed her head at the marker tile..and sat on the grave..

..she was lost in quiet reverie as this coot was lost in unfathomable feelings..my neighbour called out from her bedroom window..and this old coot cried..

..as I left her there to send my children to school, I could feel the tears running down my cheeks..

..she was no longer there when I came back..a quick search found her on a ledge of my neighbour's home..I hugged her as I carried her home..this cat mourns her dead..and this coot cried for her..

..a man of words..

..retirement frees me of encumbrances..free in the sense that there are not many tethers to my time and finance...but the mind is a funny thing, I found out...it cannot be idle for too long a time..like a garden left idle, weeds and other similar bushes starts to grow and pretty soon overwhelm the landscape..and in the landscape of the mind, being idle is dangerous...

..being always physically active, the body is relatively fit..for a 64year old, that is...the steps are still firm, but the spring is gone...the trick now is to keep the mind active...

..with that objective in mind, I offered my services to friends...since I am a man of words, I am now trying to be a man of deeds..after all, "a man of words and not of deeds, is like a garden full of weeds.."

..I prepare letters for friends having bureaucratic problems..I check accounts and made financial reports..look for houses someone wants to rent...offer advice and do errants..fill up forms...facebook and blog..

..and I read, voraciously..anything...from all the papers..Kosmos,(yes)..the Star...to whatever magazine that I can get my hands on..and blogs, whatever the genre..Rocky Bru and A Kadir Jasin are favorites...not so much for the articles posted, but more for the comments that followed..and, yes, I am a fan of Warrior 231...

..and with God, I try to keep to a schedule..solat berjumaah as far as possible, no matter where I am...read a few lines from the Quran every day...I try hard not to mourn the past..or reflect too much on the future..I thanked Him for each day that He giveth..asking for strength that whatever I have to do today, I will do it in earnest..and with honesty...

..and if, along the way, I get a few cents, then it is a bonus..

..orang pantai..

..it is the norm in Bachok to call the people who lived along the fringes of the beach as Beach People - orang pantai...being mainly fishermen theirs was a hard life, then..

..not too long ago their houses lacked toilet facilities..no, it cannot then be called houses...for huts is more like it...made of planks and atap roofs from coconut leaves...

....not having toilets, all toiletry activities are carried out on the the beach, for, indeed the whole beach is their toilets..normally done in the wee hours of the morning before the sun comes up...or after dusk...seeking safety from the halflight...the resulting puddle is left to the waves to pull it back to the sea...

...those days, if families wanted to spend a quite evening by sea, they would normally select beaches away from settled area...thus avoiding flotsam and stepping unwittingly on puddles...

...but things have improved greatly since...we have access roads built right up to the beaches..houses without bathrooms are no more..and children no longer have to rush to the beach whenever something they ate disagree with them...

..and for me, I can go to any part of the beach without fear...



..

..ayam in a shoe-box..

..a bit political...

..this is not a political blog...politics leave a bitter taste in my mouth..the least said about the state of politics the better...it is just a blog where an old geezer airs his linen...some smudged, some clean...a place where he punches his bag...

..but this time I just have to say something that touches on politics...not that I have anything against it..knowing its necessity... but it is the politicians and their antics that I cannot stand..

..but first let me set the premise straight...

..having served the Federal Government for almost 30 years in various capacities, being a Muslim Malay, I leaned a little towards Barisan..but having served 15 of those years in Kelantan, I can lived with PAS...but lately I am disappointed with both..with PAS especially...and I have no illusions with PKR, knowing and remembering its history...and DAP is just a Chinese version of PAS...

..most Kelantanese have nothing against UMNO as a party..but for as long as UMNO carries with it an image of an elitist party and the people in it are in it for the money.. for the projects.., I don't think there will be a day when Barisan can take over the state government...we are tired of old faces and their flashy cars and big bungalows...no matter how much PAS goofed and bungled...the people had grown accustomed to PAS...their low-keyed and low profile approach appealed to the simple village folks...Dato' Awang Adek has shown that it can be done...

...and why must Barisan wait for a by-election before coming in force with the goodies..? they are not winning elections that way...how many more elections does it take before they learned that Kelantanese are not taken in by pre-elections goodies and promises..? instead, why not identify an opposition strong-hold and adopt it as an UMNO area..? take care of it..nurture it..identify what is lacking.. bring in the basic projects...be with the people..in the truest sense..slogans don't win elections in Kelantan.

..take Bachok...a few days before PRU12, TPM came with 500k for the district mosque...a bit late...he should have come 2 years earlier with the money...that day he should be there just for the Friday prayers..and lunch with the raayat..the message would not have been lost..

..respect for the elders is paramount for Kelantanese..TGNA is old..so, leave him alone..confronting him directly will not win votes...if we have to differ with what he says..then, do it indirectly...

..but, then, oh well...as I said, I don't like politics...



..

..youth of today...

..i thought youth of today never had it so good..what with all the gadgets of modern technology at their fingertips..things I as a youth never thought could possibly exist today...

..with the advent of transistor radios in the late fifties and early sixties, that is about the only source of music for this oldster then...enjoying the Beatles and Cliff Richard through tape recorders that uses miles of tape and through the radio with two inch speakers..and records, of course..those kind in 78, 45 or 33 rpm..gadgets that came complete with record players were in the in thing back then...called radiogram, names like Grundig and Telefunken came to mind...with National from Japan competing...

..with no cellphones, messages to mon cherie de amour were sent surreptitiously.. by hand or snailmail...ages before they were received...

...these days its Friendsters...Facebook...when before it was autograph books..circulated before year end holidays...and returned to the owner filled with 'FRANCE'..friendship remains and never can end..with a hidden ITALY among the pages...I trust and love you...

..when tv came in the middle sixties, things took a turn for the better...then it was Shindig and Startrek...savoured in glorious black and white...

..but things were simple then, uncomplicated...

..a song for all the young ones out there..enjoy your youth whilst you can...

..

..to Yasmin...

..I lost a friend a few days ago...a friend that I have never met..never talked..never even exchanged a simple hello...and during her lifetime, she was not even aware that I am around..but she was a friend, nonetheless...and I know, that if I were to walk up to her and introduced myself then, she would have greeted me like a long, lost friend..

.. we moved in different worlds...but her words, her messages I received clear and loud...words and messages that I would like to leave to my children and grandchildren..that we worship this One God, Who is most Compassionate and Loving..that we are created different that we may know each other and love each other..that through Him we seek guidance and bounty...

..she taught us to laugh at ourselves and accept our idiosyncrasies....and that there are no borders to loving each other..but, above all, she taught us to be humble...and for all that and more, friend, I am forever grateful..

..a little peeved...

..am walking around feeling a bit peeved and a little bit sad...peevish at being misunderstood and misconstrued and a little sad at being accused of something uncomplimentary ...

...and I really do not mind the misconstruing part..sometimes the best of intentions get misread..and , hey, we are all humans...we make mistakes...and this old coot has stalked this little corner of planet earth long enough to know that no matter how intelligent someone is..how high and complete the paper qualifications.. it all will come to naught if we cannot accept in all humility, that humans are frail creatures...it will all comes to naught if we do not have a little bit of grace in the heart and a little bit of magninamousity in attitude to accept apologies when given...that made me sad...

..for, indeed, we are all players on a temporal stage..leaving insignificant footprints that shake not the mountains...and dry not the sea..

..wistful thoughts..

..when you came back with a degree, 3 years ago, I was quietly proud of you...but your sisters had warned me that you were in love..and I said, ok, that's a fair position to be, considering you were young...'in love with a foreigner, pa, a Thai'...I shrugged..her sister married an Englander..

...but upon being told that he helped in the kitchen at a restaurant where you had your meals in between studies and he was lil bit younger than you, I thought you had to draw the line somewhere..but even then, I kept my peace...puppy and transitory, I thought..

...every time we met at your mother's house, I tried to joke you out of it..but you were steadfast in your love for him..even as I warned you that it will be a rough ride ahead..what with both of you jobless..not that I was really worried about you..with your degree, and passable command of English, some firm will take you in..but him?..no basic qualifications to show and with a social visit pass to boot?

..he can get a job here in Kota Bharu as a cook...and I can get a job anywhere..for I will and must marry him, pa, you said...your voice soft, your doe eyes pleading..'and we can stay here..' Here meaning the house that I had left..I glanced at her mother, who would welcomed him... her silence was consent...but a PATI as a son-in-law?..I did not even know where he was from...from the restive south, you said..hmm..a refugee seeking shelter from your generous heart...

...I did not mind him being a cook...he might even make it into the Asian Food Channel..but both of you were too young...and him younger....and he was definitely not in a position to support a wife..looking at him, I did not think he was even in a position to have a girlfriend...this part man part boy stood in front of me...and I sat there with my mind racing..why is it that you keep seeing reflections of your youth in your children?...

..now, three years later, two precious and precocious grandchildren later, you tell me that it is a mistake...your marriage is falling apart... he is out of job...you do not love him anymore...he is not what you thought he is...you want out...

..no, girl, it is not that easy..yes, marriage is a gamble..but you do not gamble the lives of your children by divorcing his father...not when the girl is only a few years old and the boy babystepping...

... there is not a man born yet who can satisfy the needs and requirements of a woman..none..there will be defects..shortcomings..you just have to learn to live with it..take the rough with the smooth...

..you are chickening out, girl...jumping ship at the first sign of a storm...and you have a passenger of two...and this oldster of a grandfather is putting off meeting you...hoping somehow this aberration will disappear..

..ahh..it was only yesterday that I picked you up and duh duh you to sleep and you holding tight onto the pacifier....

..an eulogy..

.. a distant relative by marriage died the other day.. he was 53 years old.. I hardly knew him when he was alive..we moved in different circles, as it were..but as is the norm in the kampong, we visited his grieving widow and his nine children..

it was a ramshackle of a home.. rickety and bare of items normally found in most homes..just an old tv set.. a mat on the floor. .a room without a door.. and not much else..

…later I was to learn that he was a daily rated construction worker… died of a fall whilst working on the forth floor of a building.

Mak Nik, the widow, was a full time housewife. ..with nine children,. I cannot imagine her doing anything else.. leaving the burden of bringing home the money to Pak Nik..but when she has the time, she will be packing charcoals into plastic sacks in a kiln nearby owned by her brother-in-law..earning 50 cents a sack..

… come tobacco-growing season, the whole family will be out on the field..hoeing out furrows, planting seedlings, nurturing the plants and finally harvesting..bringing much needed extra dollars…

..their eldest, a son, and still single, graduated 5 years ago and is a lecturer at one of the local university.. on a piece of ancestral land, he is building a modest home not far from the existing house..with 7 other siblings in school, marriage has been postponed..

..their second child, also a son, just graduated and is teaching somewhere..

….with two sons finishing universities and at the threshold of their respective careers, things are looking up for Paknik and Maknik…all those sacrifices, toils, and sheer hard work has borne fruits..that none of his children dropped out of school is a testimony of Paknik as a father, and Maknik as a mother…their children must be very proud of them..

..but he is dead now..no doubt his wife and children will missed him..the eldest will take over the mantle..life goes on regardless..tears hidden..gathering strength from each other..

..and so, to Paknik, Al-Fatihah..may you be in a special Garden bestowed by Him..and your face shined like a thousand suns as He says Salam…Peace..from your God Who is Most Loving..

..

..today's music..

..this oldster is never into present day music..even the rare ones that raised above the miasma of forgettables are forgotten after a while..music that emanated from my sons' room only resulted in me bellowing to them to bring the volume down...with them complaining to their mother that father 'is so old'.. well, old I might be, but this old man recognises good music when he hears one..

..and one good music of my time is Matt Monroe's 'And the music played'.. the title is a bit bland by today's standard, but the song and delivery is beyond description..but, then, you be the judge..

..when songs were simpler..

..a song I grew up with...

..thought for the day..

..politics bring out the worst in every man and woman...across the board...no exception..

...singles in the city..

..hopping blogs, I came across a few put up by singles…mostly professionals…alone out there in big cities…mostly gals…highly educated…have done stints abroad…confident and good at their job…past 30 or approaching 40…intelligent and self-assured…multi-faceted talents…articulate…and a lil bit sensitive about their single status…

…as to be expected, their blogs are well-presented…witty and entertaining….I found them mostly to be a good read…humorous and frank..honest, even…

..as I read through their pathos and ethos..hopes and despairs..I cannot help but feel for them…it must have been hard…to be single in the city…doubting the smiles of friends and collegues..for it could very well be snide remarks and sniggers behind their back..innocent queries hurt..attempts to matchmake are like slivers of glass to the heart…a reproach to their self-esteem..

… but through it all, somehow, they managed to retain their sanity..managed to see the humour in every incidents..juggling at their career, and, of course, competing with men..and, at the same time, trying to see through them...city-slickers of the male species are masters at subterfuge..

…having once a daughter who decided to forge it out on her own in the big city some years ago, I truly feel for them…

…and so, to all those single gals out there, to borrow a phrase from a cyber friend, get your blades out…

..just thinking..

..I have been thinking a lot lately...when you reached my age, you tend to think a lot, I supposed..seeing that pursuits are more of the cerebral kind than of any other kind...not that the libido is totally down...God has blessed with a relatively good health...oh..a lil bit of tinnitus, some whining in the ears, but bearable and only when in a passive mode..a lil case of reducible hernia..other than that everything else is as it should be..a bit worn but functioning..the spring is gone, but the steps are steady...

...what set me thinking was a comment by a facebook friend on the state of football in the country..he said it is atributable to the general decay of society as a whole...as I mulled over his comment, I realised that he has it spot on..ours is a degenerative society...I mean, look around you...read the papers..the state of our politics..the name-calling..religious decrees are issued at a drop of a hat..people are more divided than ever before..no thanks to the politicians, whose political interest overides all...the state of our social morals..old geezer died whilst with a transvestite...infants borned in toilets and drowned in pails...pornograhic clips in every kids handphones..rempit...the list is endless..and they are all symptoms of a decaying society..

..the rot has started at the hands, feet and mouths..we have to stem it..now..before we incur the wrath of Him up there...and He might just punished us for it..looking at the state of things, maybe He has, already...

..PCB and everything Kelantanese...

..one of Kelantan well known attractions is the Beach of Passionate Love, Pantai Cinta Berahi, which the present state government, fearing its sexual connotations might pollute impressionable minds, young and old amongst them, was quick to change it to Pantai Cahaya Bulan, the Moon Light Beach, the full moon being their political symbol, after all...

...which, like the single-sex counters in supermarkets, is an exercise in futility, for locals continued to call it by its acronym, PCB, meaning Pantai Cinta Berahi...not PCB, Pantai Cahaya Bulan..

..but to the older generations like me, it is Pantai Semut Api, its original name..the Beach of Fire Ants, until sometimes in 1950 when it was renamed Pantai Cinta Berahi...and quickly translated into the Beach of Passionate Love, taking the standard meaning of the word Berahi as Passionate...more with attracting the tourist in mind, I think...

...I had a feeling that the gentleman who gave the beach its famous tag is a true-blue Kelantanese with a wicked sense of humour, or someone who had mastered the Kelantanese dialect, knows its people, the traits and customs and was taking a dig...he must have had a devilish smile on when his proposal was approved...

..locals used the word berahi, corrupted to brehi, to mean an intense liking for something..so it is truer to say that Pantai Cinta Berahi means the Beach with a Passion For Love..and that, more or less, described the Kelantanese...people with a fondness for love...for, indeed, we are more known for our amorous deeds than any thing else...

..well, if we take polygamy as a yardstick, Kelantan leads...for the period 1990 to 2004, Kelantan registered the highest number of polygamous marriages... with 5274 cases..(figures from Jakim from a study done by Utusan Malaysia in 2007)...since it is relatively easy to get hitched in Kelantan, and with the generally laidback atitude Kelantanese have for marriages, polygamous or otherwise, I daresay the number of unregistered marriages is about equal the amount registered, if not more..

..in as much as Kelantanese men having no qualms at taking up polygamy, whether openly or covertly, the women, too, displayed a certain degree of practicality when it comes to marrying others' husbands...well...it takes a willing gal before any man can contemplates polygamy..looks like in the state of TGNA, there are many willing girls... perhaps a moot point for those SistersInIslam to ponder...instead of calling for laws making it difficult for men to marry, why not draft laws punishing damsels who agreed to?....I jest, of course, but how about a jail term and rotan?..that will keep polygamy at bay...

..and I do not think that economic consideration is a factor..we have trisha-pedallers and simple village folks with no fixed income practising it as well as those men of means and money...while such marriages tend to be tumultous, women and men being what they are, there are marriages that survived...but the divorce-rate is high..leading at about 15% inclusive of monogamous marriages...

..meanwhile, at the Beach of Passionate Love, the courting goes on.......

..Bachok...tourist Islamic town..?

..I took my teenaged kids to the beach the other day..or rather I persuaded my kids to follow their dad to the beach..kids nowadays would rather do any other thing rather than follow their dad..ah..time when they held on tightly to my pants, wailing loudly, wanting to follow their daddy everywhere he went..when I told them that, they just gave me a clueless look, not remembering...but I digress..

..along the way there was this billboard proclaiming 'Bachok..bandar pelancungan Islam 2010..' it caught my eye as I drove past..not that I have not seen it before..I passed by it everyday on my way to Bachok from home and home is only 4 kms away from Pantai Irama..Islamic Tourist Town?..that was the promise during PRU12th..hmmm..I thought the slogan is at best ambiguous...at worst..well..it is a political slogan... Bachok is as islamic as any other town in Kelantan..and tourists that made Bachok a pitstop for cigarettes and ATM withdrawals hardly gave us a glance, their destination being Perhentian Islands..

..but we do have two banks...CIMB and Maybank..and the district mosque, which is being renovated with funds donated by the then TPM..he came a few days before PRU12..on a Friday..after Friday prayers and after a short speech, he handed the cheque to the Imam...I remember sitting in the back row of the mosque and thinking that the timing was all wrong...he should have handed the money very much earlier...then work would have started and completed earlier and his presence that day was to officialise the newly completed wing...the effect would have been better...as it was, it looked like a sweetener...fodder for the opposition...but the lunch that followed was sumptious...

..the two banks with Pasar Malam on Friday evenings and Pasar Tani on Saturday mornings helped kept Bachok alive..well, to a certain extent..they are popular with the locals and non-locals alike, with some coming from as far as Kuala Krai, the district where Manek Urai is...these two pasars are held by the beach on a piece of Police Reserve land..once, in the 80's, the Balai Police Bachok was there...with a row of Class G quarters..wooden buildings that could hardly withstood the onslaught of the monsoon gale..the lot of the rank and file, then...a salary of RM240.00 per month and quarters with a single room...efforts started by Tun Haniff made them very comfortable, indeed, by any standard...

..the administrative cluster, the Land and District Office, the Fire Department, along with Public Works Department and the Registration Department, is at Kg. Kemudi, about 2 kms from Bachok, the town....there is no District Hospital yet, though plans for it were submitted decades earlier under the Malaysian Plan...but nothing has materialised yet..

..roads in Bachok are unnamed...there are no roads named after Dato Awang Adek, or Jalan Nashamuddin Mat Isa, or Jalan Tuan Guru, for that matter...so, addresses are by Lot Numbers, Kampongs and geographic positions...and imaginations of the sender....'Lot 166, Kg. Kemudi, Depan Pejabat Tanah, 16300 Bachok', as an example...

..I thought it ironic that Bachok, Thai for Ban, kampong, Chak, nipah, has a population of 120,000, by the last count in 2005...almost the same as the population of Orang Asli in the country...and the Orang Asli are better allocated than us...so we shall always be associated with tobacco plantations...the only activity that brings with it immediate economic relief...but now that Tuan Guru has likened smokers to cows, tobacco growing is slowing down...with no feasible alternative in sight...

..Pantai Irama has improved...concrete blocks now lined the shore...holding in check wave erosion...a life-guard tower, manned 24 hours by men from the Civil Defence, was erected..hopefully to check the cases of death by drowning that occurred almost every year during the monsoon season...for the retailers of fried seafood and stuff, concrete structures with proper shelters were provided...there is no more the shanty town atmosphere of old..with the beach generally clean, the pace relaxed and slow, with the district mosque improved...teachings from the Holy Quran almost every night after Magrib...night prayers twice a month, Bachok is heaven and a haven for retirees like me....

..battle weary Itek..scratches and all

..Ayam with her litter..

..cats and stuff..

..when my Fourth Former daughter asked for a kitten as a pet a year ago, I said no.. no, I will not have some furry beast marauding in my house leaving a trail of urine and fur..seeing my firm refusal, she did not pursue her request...though later, I was told that she was crestfallen...and hated me for it..'It's only a kitten, everyone has a cat or two at home...why must papa be so unreasonable?' she pleaded with her mother..until one day we happened to drop by her cousin and was told whilst sipping tea and enjoying her aunt's curry puffs that their pet cat had given birth to two kittens..

..'See, papa...they're so cute...' she gushed, and placed the cat family-in-a-box next to my feet.. I looked down and saw two balls of squirming fur and a pair of bright-yellow eyes looking up at me..the mother cat was trying to tell me something..backed by her younger brother and everyone else present, I gave in to my daughter's plea, little realising that I'd be opening the floodgates ..ok, one kitten only..but in the end I ended up with the whole cat family-in-a-box..'they're still suckling'..'it is only a temporary measure'..the mother will be returned..I was coaxed into acceptance.... by the time I realised what happened, it was too late..the two furry balls grew and scampered into everybody's heart including mine..

..a few months later, the tabby, rediculously named Ayam, got pregnant whilst the tom, Itek, got into various cat fights in the neighbourhood, fighting for supremacy and territory..disappearing in the morning after a hearty breakfast of rice mixed with boiled fish and cat food...slouching and limping home in the evenings, scratched, torned and wounded, to be attended and repaired by my daughter and her mother...many a times I sat from a distance, watching them washed away the grime..applying iodine on the cuts..and marveled at how Itek meekly surrendered his wounds to both of them...

..sometimes in August last year, I woke up for my morning prayers to the twitter of excitement in the kitchen...it was almost six in the morning..mother, daughter and son were crouched animately over the inevitable box...Ayam had delivered her first kitten and was in labour for the rest of her litter..7 in all..Itek left on his daily soujourn, without waiting for his breakfast, and never returned...the excitement of Ayam and her litter turned to anxiety over Itek's disappearance..of the 7, one died..and duly buried with all the aplomb and gravity that children gave when their pet died..

..after three days, the search for Itek began in earnest...the tom that sired seven kittens had disappeared without a trace..talk about not being able to handle fatherhood...we scoured the neighbouring houses....going, 'Itek..Itek..Itek..' to the quizzical looks of the village folks on being told we were looking for our pet tom-cat..but nobody had seen him...cats are known to disappear for months when they're on mate-path, they say..he will return,  they said..my children were gutted..I began to miss him, too..so, we decided to extend the search farther across the road..Pak Hin, a wizened old man, known for his cows, confirmed that a cat that fitted Itek's description had had a fight with his tom early one morning..in the chase, both had fallen into his tobacco-watering well and drowned..he had the carcasses thrown into the river...my daughter and her First Former brother were stupefied...their mother cried..it's only a cat, I said..but I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, too...

..and from then on, we always had cats and kittens in our home..they roamed free in the garden..sometimes even on the roof...they are fed, cared and innoculated, with free healthcare thrown in..with me as ambulance driver during emergencies..but only Ayam, now spayed,  is allowed in the house..but the four Persians had their own room with room  and valet service...the rest had to make-do with the back porch, or any nook and cranny...

..

..blog on..

..it started as a lark..but later, I realised that blogging has its positive points..it soothes as it comforts..like stroking a purring cat..as the words flow it bring with it a sense of appeasement.. releasing pent-up emotions..there is this need to lay bare your soul..and blogging does exactly that..lay bare your very quick..

...it doesn't matter if nobody reads it..it may be lost in oblivion..or it may be read by anonymous readers..perhaps with a smirk..but you don't really care..it is your own private space in cyber world..a mark..a station in cyber land.. where your little idiosyncrasies and your innermost thoughts are revealed to all and sundry..with nary a care..

..my son, remp-it..

..it has always been the rule of the house, strictly enforced by me, that whoever wants to ride a motorcycle or drives a car, for whatever purpose, must do it legal...legal in the sense that  all requirements as laid down by the relevant authorities are adhered too..safety belt or helmets buckled..valid driving licence, road-tax and insurance cover.. including courtesy on the road...

..having four boisterous and hot blooded sons, I thought as a parent, that's the least I can do to combat this rempit thing..

..so I was a lil bit surprised on being told one morning that my would be uitm student son was summoned by the police for a traffic misdemeanor during a night cruise with his friends along Irama Beach..the misdemeanor?..failing to display the P sign at the back of the bike..'aw, pa..I did not realised it had dropped..gum failure..and I got no money to offer him..' he said, by way of answering my raised eyebrows..fearing my wrath, he had pleaded with the hand of the law...he apologised..profusely, I am sure..he grovelled...almost like a cat grovelling at its master's foot, but to no avail...the hand of the law, having writ, will not be stopped...I can see his anger..and I can also see him hardening up against the law enforcers..he felt the summon was undeserved..behind my back, he cursed..

..behind his back, I agreed with him...perhaps the officer should have let him off with a stern warning..show the kid that there is always mercy tempered in the mighty arms of the law..that they're human, too..that they're kid-friendly..if it is too much to expect them to be customer-friendly..

than, perhaps, the kids will learn to respect the law-enforcers..instead of avoiding them like the plague..

..polygamy, anyone...

..it must be the season, again..men in the forties, or pushing forty, 5 or 6 kids in tow, looking for a fresh wife...don't ask for reasons why, for you won't get it...present wife may be good looking, educated, presentable, to say the least..and still, the urge to have the second wife cannot, will not be suppressed...some control the urge well..and got away with secret trysts..clandestine meetings..but ultimately the desire to have it out in the open overcomes all..wife may be gutted to the quick..what has she done wrong?..when no wrong has been committed..where has she failed..when there is no failure on her part..she gives in to her anger and fury...when scorn is not the answer..

..ahh..women...forever drawn towards married men...its ok to marry others husband...as long as others don't marry yours..