Recycled Raya

This will be Aliff's first Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Alahai. Kalau in Malaysia, boleh claim duit Raya. Kat sini tuan rumah kasi chocolates aje. Nanti later on, boleh back claim tak? Heehee..

Before you kids go off to your DeepaRaya holidays, here's my post to linger in your heads. I wrote this three years ago. I wrote another post about tarawikh prayers in the mosque in front of my house, but somehow that post is missing. So we make do with this one instead.

Raya Fiasco

At the age of 9, on Raya eve, I went out with my brother to hang out with our neighbor's kids. And I mean hang out. I was on a tree. 8 pm came and our neighbor came out of the house and announced "Esok Hari Raya!!" (after watching the Penyimpan Mohor Besar on TV naturally). All kids went beserk, screaming "Yayyy!! Esok Raya!!". So did I, and foolishly let go of both hands which were holding onto the tree. Down I went, literally tumbling head over feet. I landed on my feet, like an accomplished circus performer. If I had a better sense of humor then, I would have said "Ta-daaa!", instead I just grinned and laughed. It was total silence for a while, then someone said, "eh eh, ada darah". The next part was just like in a bad Malay movie. I wiped my hands on my forehead, saw the blood, my eyes bulged out and I automatically burst out crying. The kids screamed "Darah! Darah!", the adults came out wondering what the commotion was about and I stood there in a circle, crying. My brother unfroze, grabbed my hands and ran back home.

The run back home is still very vivid in my mind. In between my neighbor's house and mine was this huge field. It's big enough for a soccer match. We had to run across the field to get back home. I remember the dark grass underneath me, I remember my small hand in my brother's hand and I remember the spitting. Spitting the blood that was running down from my forehead and into my mouth. I was going "wooeehuhuhuu, *ptui *ptui, wooeehuhuhu" (that's me crying and spitting) and my brother was going "It's ok, it's ok. Nak sampai dah ni" (that's my brother, probably scared out of his mind and worried that my dad was going to blame him for not taking care of me properly).

The rest of my family were putting up Raya cards as decorations on the windows (very kitsch, but hey, it was the 80s!) and when my brother opened the door to reveal my bloody face, my sister, the garang-on-the-outside-emotionally delicate-on-the-inside type, started crying. I went to my mother for comfort, and as far as I was concerned, nothing else mattered anymore. My dad drove to the hospital and I got three stitches on my forehead. I spent the first Raya week with this HUGE bandage plastered to my face. They took lots of Raya pictures of me that year and there's one of me, grinning ridiculously, my fringe almost covering the bandage. Two weeks later, the bandage and the stitches came off, but the memory, like the scar, is still here today.

Have a joyous (and hospital-free) Raya!