We Love You

Time. Death. Familial bond. 

Intricate concepts.

We weren't exactly close these past few years. She used to take me in to keep her youngest daughter company while we both were growing up. I was pretty close with Kak Na growing up. We used to be childhood play mates. I remember the little snitch planting fire crackers in a pile of cow dung only for it to prematurely explode and gotten my ass scolded and she escaped. Small chuckles on my lips when I remember that.

That's it.

Family expanding with marriages meant we kept to ourselves mostly. Not for the loss of love whatsoever. Its just that way.  If I'm honest there have been deaths of family members who I don't really feel the need to be there aside from the familial obligation I'm reminded to observe. I thought Mak Uda's passing is gonna be one of those.

But the sadness is profound. I have a niggling, stinging pain in my chest whenever my mind decided to take a little stroll down memory lane. In fact I'm a little bit teary as I'm typing this. Or whenever I encountered a picture of her, which is very rare, although not estranged, it kinda reminds me how kind of far we've grown apart as a family. 

I have no beautiful tributes to write in your memory. I just wanna say that your passing pains me in a way I don't know how to explain and I pray that you're in a better place right now. 

And if I'm granted a wish right now, its to see you for one last time and hug you and kiss you and say how much we love you.

Mak...

With friends. Guy friends. Fuck you. Fuck me. Then we are not even bothered to shake hands. We go on. With the girls, well a little bit more complex. But we talked it out. Bam! We go again. With siblings. I fucking hate you you demonstrate exactly the same amount of hatred towards me, but if you would find yourself in a fight, you know I'll be there in your corner more than to wipe off the blood from your wounds, sweat and tears - I would help you deliver the killing blow and later help you hide the body.

With partners, well a story for anoother time. Well, they're you know, partners.

But with our Moms.

Its always a little bit extra delicate. You love her. You hate her. She disses you. You're angry. But you always come back. I wish I could be angry at my mom for a little bit longer. But I never can't.

So here's what I promise what I will try to do.

I will love you unconditionally.

No matter our differences. No matter our disagreements. I will always love you. So I'm gonna do what I have to do no matter how seemingly unpretty, so that I could love you. Simply because I love you Mak. And I will always do no matter how much I seem to contradict these words.

And I hope you know that. I dunno how frankly, what with me being the biggest asshole there is to you. But I hope you do. But I'll guess you'll never find it out from me.

Your ungrateful son.

To The Ones Who Actually Matter

Its one of those days. 

When everything inside you is made of sweet, marshmellowy stuffs. 

I mean I could write a poem to immortalize the zenith-like feelings I have for them and write it in such a way that would have you thinking that ours is a summer breezed, Versailles-like garden of a tale. So grandeur an affair.

But I would be lying.

Because truth of the matter is its not. No, even that would be a gross understatement simply because families irk you 99% of the time! Nod your head and smile if you agree. 

I know. 

They're assholes, manipulative and selfish !@#$%^%^*!

But  in spite of all the pain they inflicted so kindly on your ass, despite those MINOR flaws, you love them anyways. You love them so fiercely that if you were to mess with my brother you gotta be prepared to have me as an enemy. And if you would have the misfortune of messing with my sister, oh well, she would have probably gotten your nose broken at this point anyways and would have your rib cages shattered for good measure.

Mess with my parents. Then its you and I.

The very point that I'm trying to deliver home through this mess of unintelligible ramblings is that I love you guys. Through thick. Through thins. Through hardships. Through eases. Through the rains and through the scorching sun. I love you guys.

You fucking rock! 

Bird Watching

There's a National Geographic moment happening in my backyard right now. Ada sekor burung who'd built a nest on what's left of that small piece of yard behind our house. Selebihnya, according to my father, has all been and I quote - "Belanda rampas tanah". (LOL)

Mak buat wet kitchen dekat belakang tu and she's seriously not happy that bapak keeps on mentioning the Belanda rampas tanah thinggy. lol.

But anyways, back to the burung story.

Damn. What an interesting thing to happen. Small piece of land. A barely grown tree with branches and leaf so scarce, people would thought that we erected the damn thing over there. But life finds a way. There you are a mother bird who would constantly fly off to God knows where and two (or three, I cannot yet ascertain) hatchlings who would only make any sort of sound when mommy comes back with a large opening on her mouth along with KFC. In fact they were so silent, there a few times I wondered if they had abandoned their nest, since there is also a minor construction going on on of our neighbour's house and its fucking noisy. But they're good. They're really good. In one of my stalkings I could see one of the bald hatchlings being more aggressive than the others. 

Oh well.

Maybe I'll take pictures sometimes. But I don't wanna scare the mommy off. Hrm.

Nuang & Some Other Side Notes

I just stumbled upon an entry I wrote in 2012 about a copycat blog, my copycat blog. lol. What a poyo guy. Biar la budak tu nak plagiat your thoughts. You should be proud. Things we do in our younger days. And the foolishness they allow. Makes you smile. (Makes you feel all the same, unfortunately)

Anyways.

As we speak, Hadi and Jahed, my nephew are climbing up Gunung Nuang again today. I wanted with all my heart to topple her again. A peak denied me when I injured myself climbing the top of her in 2013. Notice the sexual innuendo there ? Well, me neither. Back to the topic, I injured myself climbing the mountain because I thought wearing jeans while climbing up a 4,898 ft mountain was a good idea. One that I pains-takingly, literally, learned was not a few hours later.

There is a time window you have to adhere to when climbing up Nuang. You have to be the at the peak and start making the climb down by or around 2 PM to avoid getting trapped climbing down treacherous path in the dark. And I'm not kidding when I say treacherous. I've heard stories that there were these couple of guys who were lost and and ended up at Janda Baik! Which is not too weird considering, if you take a look at the map above, that Nuang is situated between two states namely Selangor and Pahang. But let me offer another perspective, you basically started off your hike in Pahang and end it in Selangor! lol.

We were late, of course, caused by the injury of our members, me and Jahed, the two fatties who went and get their selves injured in an outdoor activity that was supposed to be fun. Goddamnit Fakhrol!

I had intended to put the picture of Nuang's peak I would search from Google but fuck it, no. Am going to conquer her one day and then and only then will I share with you the pictures. The ones that I'm gonna take myself. If not for class commitments I have, I would have been wetting my socks with her cold river streams now. Sighs.

Save Moi

Gosh I really need to curb down my spending on these 'hobby' craps. Every time I see a Tamiya or a Gundam ad I have this uncontrollable urge to click click click. But I just.....

Its one of those things you've had to hold yourself from when you were a kid. You want this and you want that and you can never really have it because it was not financially prudent for your family to trade a plate of nasik goreng so that you can have an Ultraman figure, so to speak. My family's not exactly 'poor' poor but we aren't rich either. My father used to drive a cab back then aside from his post office job (yeah, I never knew what he really did in his younger days in Pejabat POS, when I asked he said he never was a postman but rather he delivers letters by vans, but lets just keep that part for another day) and my mom worked as an information assistant at our old, beloved airport Terminal 1. I think its safe to say that we were the perfect example of a lower middle class family during those glorious booming Malaysian economics.

I remember one day I saw an Ultraman figure I think it was RM 6.00 or RM 12.00. So I never really get my way during those days and you've learnt to just accept that your family can never really afford it (or can they ? I guess I'll never know) so you just ask once and you're 99% sure its never going to be affirmative but you asked anyway. But where I went to school from my standard one to five in Kampung Tunku, PJ (1991-1995) the brats there were made of mostly upper mid to upper class income families and I've heard stories from my friends if they would have just stood their ground, eventually their parents would give in and buy them those toys they want, just to get them away from the toy shelves. And so I did. Not only that it didn't work, I was a little embarrassed that my father would scold me there and then. Adoi malunya. That was the first and last time I ever tried to pull those rich kids tactic. Tahi la. Dengan family aku tak jadi punya!

So when you're working and these things from your olden days, things you once had but was too stupid to hold on to and somehow damaged it beyond repair, things you totally had no idea what happen to. And most importantly things you MAY NEVER HAVE in your capacity as a kid back then. So when these things appear right before your eyes and you know, now, though not filthy rich, it is still within your financial capacity to get, mata jadi buntaq semua nampak semua nak. Homaigod its so not healthy. Yesterday I resolved to control my spending more and right after I bukak Instagram this bugger said in his ads "The last of the Hublot wristwatch stock. Lepas nie tak restock dah" and despite the years in you, you get influenced by these things. So despite my staunch resolution to curb down my spending to only planned stuffs and essentials. I went ahead and contacted the seller and bought the wristwatch. 

I whispered to myself "The last wants spending for the month" and bukak FB nampak orang jual Tamiya yang memang ada dalam mental wishlist. I straight away went and private messaged him. 

Though all these spending have got to do with my uncapped desires and wants, one of the truer reason I click click click at all these ads are the fear that they will forever disappear in the market hence I lost the chance to hold a piece of that beautiful childhood era forever. Wow that somehow came out pretty poetic.

To wrap, yeap I really need to curb down these spending sprees by:

1. Narrowing them down to planned purchases ONLY. Never settle. If the item is not reachable at the moment. Leave. Don't get a compensatory, slightly similar product just to console my buying urge because I'll end up getting what I originally want eventually. Sometimes paying bloated prices. Fuck!

2. Realize that these things, despite its ages, are available. ALWAYS. You just have to know where to look and the budget. By running rampant with my finance I blow away the money that could have been put aside for the original stuffs therefore I end up getting more secondary stuffs which are of course a welcome but not the wanted destination.

I guess break ups really bring out the nerd-ism in all of us. Gundams. Star Wars. Batman. Tamiya. And I wanna have all of 'em. 

Somebody save me.

Mak..

"Ayah hang dulu time muda-muda, pakaikan helmet Mak siap tenung lama-lama lagi. Laa ni, kalau Mak gelak-gelak, dia siap pukui helmet ataih kepala Mak. Punggg!"

A recycled entry but ♥

Nanti Baru Aku Title Kan

It must have been hard to love me kan, Mak ?

Harapan. 

Harapan yang firstborn ko akan pave the way for his brothers and sister. It never really took off. Hantar pegi SDAR (Sekolah Dato' Abdul Razak) - balik separuh jalan.

Harap that your firstborn boleh jadi Doktor. So that adik-adik yang lain could follow suit. For all the potentials, the talent yang aku ada, aku end up struggling at the shallow end of the cycle.

Pegi kolej sebab aku hell-bent kata aku nak jadi animator. This is my life. This is my principle. Konon. Ah. A wisdom of a 19 year old boy. Who thought he knew everything. Who thought he knew what he wanted.

Aku end up balik separuh jalan lagi bila things started to fall apart with my then best friend.

Kata Mak still teringat lagi kat telinga aku. "Tunggu la, kot-kot Yong boleh tolong masuk UiTM". And the stupid 19 year old cakap. No, this is my life. My principle. Haih. Can I slap that stupid kid tak ?

But then again, it wasn't all bad I guess. Throughout the journey of finding oneself, I discovered loads of things. Many an individual who I don't think I would have crossed path with, had my journey been a smooth sail instead of rocky stop-start.

It might sound like regret, which is partly true of course, but a regret with a pinch of thankfulness ? I dunno seriously.

Tapi tu la.

Aku bukan anak yang baik. Cakap Mak, kalau kata jarang nak denga, is an understatement. Kadang-kadang aku rasa SEBAB Mak aku cakap yang aku rasa aku somehow kena betah. Aku rasa kita semua ada sikit prejudice dekat parents kita (bless you if you don't!). The same stuff, kalau keluar dari mulut orang lain, kata Yong ke (big cousin who I'm closest with, who weirdly, happen to be Mak's childhood friend growing up). So the same stuff, kalau keluar dari mulut Yong akan nampak reasonable dan well constructed tapi bila dia datang dari Mak, dia akan nampak macam attack against your individuality.

Tapi memang pun. Make no mistake about it. Mak-mak memang macam tu. Its their innate motherly feelings, I guess, their first primal instinct is to protect their youngs from harm. Cuma more often than not dorang tak perasan that their overprotectiveness tu actually does more harm than good. Rasa nak sambung. Tapi match MU dah nak start.

Kbai.

Place Beyond The Pines

Balik from revision session and saw my old man lying down on the floor.

Sleeping.

Desolated.

Tears mobbed his cheek during the final sending off of his best friend. My heart cringe at the thought. A lost that never probably will be replaced.

I am both glad and embarrassed having touched shoulders with the man. Glad for having the chance to personally know him up close. Embarrassed, for I am unworthy.

He was a man that during his life, a stern voice against wrongdoings. A man that would never hesitate for a second to call you out if you should transgress the barriers, which naturally, granted him a fair share of dislikers.

A man born perhaps in the wrong era. An era where brutal honesty is mistaken with being uncivilized. He never bothered to fiddle with that crap.

Us humans tend to have short memories. Overglorification of the dead is a common occurrence when talking about somebody deceased. But trust me when I say that Mr. Harun Nayan does not need any of that.

Folks who had attended his burial will be the testament to this. They talk in glowing terms when recalling certain personal encounters with the great man.

I have cousins who barely knew him attending his final parting, wondering what the heck his day job was because for all they know, his jobs, his activities, his LIFE have always been in one way or another, associated with the work of the Masjid. The welfare of the people (he was one of the committee members of the Masjid's Welfare bureau) and Amal Ma'ruf Nahi Mungkar.

What a life to have lived. What a beauty in death to have.

I could go on and on.

But I should probably stop.

He doesn't need me or anyone for that matter to shine his deeds for they speak a great deal for themselves.

The sum of a human life I think, lies within the amount of souls we touched during our journey towards eternity. 

So if anyone should ask how did he die, I will tell him how he lived instead.

Al-Fatihah.

The Very Best of Us

In succession of a few days, we have received the news of losses of two of our most beloved relative and a family friend.

He takes away the very best of us. Reminding us that nothing in this world is really ours. No one in this world is really anybody's anybody.

But He really DOES take away the very best from us. 

Mere words failed, I have exhausted the best of adjectives for these deceased.

Long shall memories serve the best of moments far as I can reminisce. Al Fatihah Pak Caq (deceased 27th March 2014) and Pakcik Harun (deceased 30th March 2014). 

Warm are these tears against this misty morning. 2014. What a year this has been so far.

This Is Making Me Sad..

My nephew posting a picture with spitting image of his late father. I wonder what he must feel. Does he miss his dad ? Does he wish at times he could talk to him ? About girls, about the many dreams he must have.. I wonder. Makes me teary, this.

I cannot cannot imagine the kind of pain one at such a tender age has to go through. Wanting to talk to that somebody. So badly. But you just can't.

Farhan mesti nak cerita dekat Ayah that he wishes to follow his footsteps. Suka main bola. Sangat-sangat. Farhan mesti rasa nak Ayah could hug him and just tell him that everything will be just fine.

All the things he wishes to say. All the father-son things they never get to do..

Soul Searches

I have a severe problem of communicating how I feel at a needle-point accuracy, so to speak, verbally. I find solace under the shelter and might of the pen. I have always envied ones with a tongue so eloquent they manage to convey WHAT they want and WHEN they need to exactly in the right amount of words and just enough vocavulgarity (ies) without ever having to sidetrack to profanity.

Mak said I was probably slightly neglected during my earliest childhood. My sister was born when I was barely a year they said. But March 3, 1984 to November 11, 1985, I think that makes up about 1 year and 8 months ++. Still was there lack of attention that I have this problem of expressing myself ?

I have always felt somewhat short in the art of what my colleague would call the Taichi. The masterful art of deflecting hits and redirecting it to someone else first before finding out the facts and figures yourself, of which, by that particular time, the attention has winded down so much, it might as well had never happened.

Hence during my early years with my current employer, I always have to write down what and how I feel to make sense of things, I wrote down every last details of the affair. I had to dig and I had to dig deep. And lo,  it makes so much more sense when I write them down. I was able to dissect what and how I feel compared to just feeling enraged ALL THE FUCKEN TIME. 

Yes, rage. Very productive.

I had no idea how to solve things, therefore I break them. Its not that I discard the art of effective communication altogether, its just that by the time I do employ them, the tone will almost always be slightly higher than what's required to be effective. Thus, there's no such thing as anti climax ending to my confrontations. They always have to be either 'hideous' ugly or they never happened to have an ending.

Last but not least. Fruitful discussions and effective communications are all pretty, only you happened to be ugly. So pardon me not when I snap.

:)

These days I don't even know the song that I have in my 2000 strong playlist, well more actually, but God, I download album after albums but that does not mean I'm gonna listen to the whole lot of them.

So, I stumble upon this song - very easygoing melody, delightfully light music. Makes one smiles, albeit a melancholic one. Truth be told, I don't even know what its saying. And upon Googling, I found out that's its one of those K-Drama OST. So must be either Yan's or these kids' punya kerja. Heck, its enjoyable nonetheless :)

Baju Melayu

Source: Uploaded by user via Mohd Fakhrolruzi on Pinterest

The moment I finished shopping dekat Jalan Masjid India, I was determined I would definitely up this entry. So before I forgot..

I was befuddled at the price I was looking at for Baju Melayu in the vicinity of Wisma Yakin. I thought they were gonna be cheaper or at least at par with what Puchong had to offer (in the region of 100 bucks/ pair) - albeit with abundance of choice.

Buoyyyyyyyy was I clueless. Wisma Yakin is definitely a cut-throat place to go to buy your Baju Melayu needs, especially on the Eve of Aidilfitri. I half suspected they bloated the prices during this time. It only make sense, the demand was up by at least a thousand-fold, and nobody's gonna buy Baju Melayu or Baju Kurung every month. So why not squeeze out the entire year's fortune now. Well, that's a theory I should prove later.

The purpose of this entry is that so I won't forget how much expenditure was involved in getting Baju Raya every year. So that I'll have some benchmark of how much should I pay for the upcoming years. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't mind paying a little higher than usual for quality but then again, I hate paying over the odds.

And to the sighing relief of mine, mine's quality as far as comfort goes. Its just the colours that I pick though. I have this slight weakness for dark colours. I picked it out regardless of realizing that how much purple there is on the canvas. I thought what the fuck, the year before was pure purple. This one ada pin-stripes. So what the heck la kan. And balik, I realized that Hafiz and Ayah had 2 identical colours, both of which I totally forgot to put into equation when making that smart-ass decision. But then again, what the heck, aku rasa lawa.

One issue tho (well, aside from the striking similarity of course) - the samping / sampen (somebody please shed me some light about this please) - The samping, I have vowed on my mother's cat's grave that I wouldn't go for that kind of material which I have given up upon a couple years back - due to the impossibility of ironing it. And the price, my sweet God - RM 145. Gila. But the colours, the colours just match my Baju Melayu. And again, I rammed down all vows, promises and silent revenge vouches I've made with myself through the loneliness of the nights years before.

All in all, I was surprised at myself for I have never been one to spend so much on Baju Melayu. To think that a few years before I personally requested Mak to only give me the top half of the Baju Melayu, for I know that the seluar is gonna be wasted. I won't wear it again after the first day of Raya. I know it.

What a difference a few years had made. But then again spending close to 300 bucks for Baju Melayu had never been me and I don't think it probably should. Perhaps, perhaps if I hadn't be so desperate since that was the last weekend before Raya (the disadvantage of having Raya on weekends!) and if not for keluar dengan Zul dengan Hadi at 4.30 pm on a Saturday evening (and Zul has been bugging to get back for bukak puasa dekat rumah. !@#$%^&*) - I maybe wouldn't have spent that much money.

But then again, the colours and the price aside - the quality is justified. Perhaps I might just come back again next year :P

:)

Source: Uploaded by user via Mohd Fakhrolruzi on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Mohd Fakhrolruzi on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Mohd Fakhrolruzi on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Mohd Fakhrolruzi on Pinterest

Source: Uploaded by user via Mohd Fakhrolruzi on Pinterest

More on deluded Arsenal fans later. For now lets roll on to the good times.

..of Colorado Mass Shooting & Ramadhan.

A culture of Shock & Awe and Carpet Bombing breed these cowardly generation of US teens. Mass shooting after another mass shooting. Sadly, and sickeningly, one of the slain victim, a Sportsblogger Jessica Ghawi had just narrowly escaped another mass shooting just six weeks earlier. Just what the hell is wrong with these teens ?

In times like this, though unfair to the memories of the fallen ones, its hard not to be prejudice, judgemental and cynical. I mean the US is too busy minding others' business, terrorist here, terrorist there, while you cultivate Terrorism in your own backyard.

And this time around it gets scarier as it hits quite close to home too, as one of my nephew is currently pursuing his studies in the University of Colorado. Tah la, the US just does not walk away with these classic cases of Pot calling kettle black.

Obummer should really focus in strengthening his country and forget about meddling in what happens behind others' closed doors.

In the meantime, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my Muslim brethren and sisters. Let us all take this chance The Almighty has granted us with. To thank Allah for the chance to meet another of His blessed Ramadhan and MOST of all to achieve the Blessings, Forgiveness and ultimately Lailatul Qadr - the three phases of Ramadhan. InsyaAllah.

♥

"Ayah hang dulu time muda-muda, pakaikan helmet Mak siap tenung lama-lama lagi. Laa (sekarang) ni, kalau Mak gelak-gelak, dia siap pukui helmet ataih (atas) kepala Mak. Punggg!"

How cute.

Mak, as she grumbles her way on top of my FZ complaining that Ayah has yet to lower down the passenger's foot rest for her to step on. The combination of the 'stiff' foot rest and the vertically challenged midg- I mean Mak are just too darn adorable.

I love You. And NOTHING will take that away from me.

Selamat Hari Jadi Ayah

55 years ago on this day was born a man... Whom words wouldn't describe. For I shall only stain his reputation and passion for Islam at the parting of my lips.

Selamat Hari Jadi. Its weird that I have to summon all my strength just to say those three words when it comes to you. But I know I do, Dad.

Happy Birthday Mak.

You aren't the best. No. For 'The Best' means, you're expendable. You're simply, Irreplaceable.

Aidilfitri 2011.

Celebrates Hari Raya even though I don't deserve Ramadhan.