Hari RAya Vibes

My dad wasn’t a religious man at all. He only went to Friday prayers on Hari Raya because he was always nostalgic for his past days in the kampung (the slums). We didn’t go to a Masjid in his kampung, but we did go to the National Masjid. The National Masjid was as massive and beautiful as the great Hagia Sophia. It was lacquered with the richness that came from our loving upper class. Many elites were there that day with their fine and neat kopiahs from the Middle East. I wanted one of those kopiahs. After all, I deserved it.

We found a place at the back row of the largest prayer hall in the Masjid. I remembered to save a seat for my uncle; he never followed us to the Masjid. The Imam started to recite an ayat from the Qur’an. It was all in Arabic which was not fair at all. None of us were Arabic. When my uncle arrived, the Imam suddenly translated the religious texts into Malay. My Malay was worse than my Arabic!

I sat there taking in the richness of the Masjid rather than listening to the Imam. My uncle and my dad were reciting something in Arabic (maybe Malay), but I realized that they were just reciting some nursery rhyme about the kampung.This must have been nostalgic! My Dad nudged my shoulder with a lot of force and pointed towards the Imam. Fathers weren’t supposed to point at the Imam according to Ustaz Hassan. One man turned towards my father sniffing the cognac of his shoulders and gave my dad a enthusiastic thumbs up. Wish I knew what it was like going to a masjid drunk.

I tried to recite an Arabic ayat that I knew pretty well. It was a short story about the two sons of Adam: Habil and Qabil. I remember that one of them kills the other because of some dispute which I thought was any Malay’s idea of fun. What did that have to do with Hari Raya? Nothing. It was the only thing I could offer for Hari Raya, but at least I was the most religious Muslim in the whole Masjid. Listening to another year of nursery rhymes was starting to bore me. The Imam’s prayers began to slumber for hours, and I saw my dad falling onto my uncle’s shoulder. Selamat Hari Raya.