Seven Days After Raya

Just as the last hurrah was fading and the day as dead as the dödöl bits carried by the procession of ants on the window sill, Father would invite his masjid mates to the house for Raya Nang.

Raya Nang took place seven days after Eid-ul-Fitri that ended the Ramadhan, on a bland and quite ordinary kind of day that would start for us with the usual trip to Pök Löh's coffee shop for the roti canai, and starched school uniform, and the homework stuffed into our school satchels, and a stepping into the freshly blancoed pair of shoes kind of day. And then Father would appear on the stairs, smiling, with friends trailing behind him, the usual list of suspects that included Pök Awang Dato' Balai, Pök Lèh Kastang, Pök Hamid Pelayang Masjid (the mosque steward), Che Ali Orang, and another called simply Che Da Baik, after his good manners and nature.

On occasions such as this Father brought home a motley crowd from the mosque, and its baffling train of cognomenclature. They were each tagged by family, trade, mien, or profession (past or present), a simple enough rule to follow, except perhaps, for Che Ali Orang, whose choice of personal pronoun, i.e. 'orang' for 'myself', became part of his name. They'd sit down in our surung, the forward part of our house that commanded a view of the Tanjong market, and they'd chat about trivial matters, or banter a bit under a portrait of Dato' Mata Mata that had been hanging there in front of our house for as long as I could remember.

Raya Nang was Hari Raya plus plus, for adults who added six days of extra fasting after the feast of the first of Shawwal that ended the puasa month. It was for Father, the last feast before moving back to the daily grind, of work at the Telegraphic Office and cycling back home for a short nap and lunch, and then back again to the teleprinter work till the yellowing light of late afternoon cast long shadows on the dusty ground of the Trengganu Bus terminus across the road. He'd come home and lean his bicycle against the pillar, a Raleigh Gentleman's with its hard Brook's saddle and Miller's dynamo that shone many a bright light on Kuala Trengganu's nooks and corners in the after hours.

Just as I was about to leave for school Mother would roll out the mengkuang mat in the inner room, and the white serving sheet. She'd lay on it a large tray of nasi ulam (rice with village herbs), and nasi dagang too, if the mood took her, with its accompanying dish of tuna in turmeric, chilli and coconut milk, and then the agar-agar and buah ulu and akok to mop up the bite of the chilli and the savoury aftertaste of the main meal.

Into the further reaches of the land where the kuala became the darat, Raya Nang was probably taken with greater fervour than in our house, but for us it was an austere adults only affair of thanksgiving with a tinge of sadness that another page was torn from the devotional calendar. Just as traffic on Jalan Pantai was building up and the early rays of the morning light were caught on the chrome handlebars of passing trishaws, when Mek Baldi the kapok and utensils dealer in front of our house was taking out her cylinders of fluff and enamelled utensils, the water-bowl would be passed around in our house, and then the hand towel. The visitors would rise with an Alhamdulillah!* and a burp, as Father bade them farewell at the door.

Soon Father would be pedalling to work, on his Raleigh Gentleman's bicycle. It was an ordinary working day, the seventh day mini-feast that we called Hari Raya Orang Tua, a day of celebration for the Elders.


*Praise be to God!