PANTANG DILARANG

I wrote about taboos many years ago. 3 years ago to be exact. You still can read it here. Many friends and readers shared their thoughts on the subject. Just click the comments link. Even if Halsoscan gave a 0 reading, there are many comments there.

One taboo that I forgot to mention was eating from a cooking utensil - the periok (cooking pot) or the kuali (wok). I first broke this taboo many many years ago when Corus Hotel was still a spanking new Ming Court. I ordered char kway tiaw at the coffee house and it came in a mini wok (kuali). I guessed I was not cursed with pestilence and famine only because the wok was not used to cook anything. I, on the other hand was not used to see food served in woks, whatever their size.

Yesterday, many years after having inured cultural assassinations by marketing experts, I sat at Eden Cafe, Amcorp Mall and ordered char kway tiaw which I know is good. I have ordered it countless times before. This time it came in a small tin wok. I can almost hear my Terengganu classmates chanting : Ku Ali makang dalang kuali. I have to surrender to the fact that marketing gimmicks override my sensitivities. How many people nowadays observe the taboos? I do not know. What I know is that laws are like taboos too and many people pay scant regards to them. Inured. Many Malaysians (present company excepted, of course) regard laws with the same disdain they reserve for old taboos. Convenience (their own) overrides their respect for rules and regulations. Going against red lights, double or triple parking, obstructing traffic, throwing rubbish indiscriminately and other misdemeanors and felonies. On the other end, there are daylight robberies, corruptions etc. ad nauseum. People get inured or in Malay kematu because hardly anyone gets caught and punished for their transgression.

As I was chewing (with difficulties since I do not have enough teeth) my kway tiaw, I thought of the punishment for sitting on a pillow. You get a boil on your butt. Wouldn't it nice for lawbreakers to get many boils on their butt and maybe a few bumps on the head too even if they managed to elude the short arm of the law?

Labels: fried kway tiaw, lawbreakers, taboos

FRIDAY PRAYERS

Today my good friend Razak came in his Kenari to take me to the new mosque in Pantai Dalam. When we saw many policemen and traffic policemen around the mosque we knew that a VVIP will be joining us. True enough, His Majesty The Paramount King (S.P.B. Yang Di Pertuan Agong) chose this mosque to pray in today. We were spared a tone-deaf muezzin and we had a spirited khatib (sermon reader). The khatib could not hide the fact that he is from Terengganu while delivering his khutbah (sermon) which was on entertainment. Entertainment, he said, is allowed by the religion as long as religious rules are followed.

The sermon though was marred by the sound of motorbikes coming into the mosque compound. As far as I can remember, this has been going on since I found this mosque. Razak and I, and I am sure a lot of other worshippers too, find this very disconcerting. Here we are trying to listen and understand the sermon (which is part and parcel of Friday prayers) and we get jolted by the loud put-put of bikers who came late. Couldn't they park outside the gates?

Then I remember that this area is "The Place Where There Is No Sheriff" where the usual laws do not seem to apply. Bikes go against the traffic on the highway, bikers do not need crash helmets and they do not stop on red. Cars and buses are parked along yellow lines and even at junctions. Why? Because no one is caught and punished. His Majesty does not come to this neck of the wood that often.

If you think that laws are broken only on the highway, let me tell you that our surau (prayer hall) has been broken in three times now. The first time, a VCD player that I donated to play Quranic verses in between prayers was taken away. The thieves probably needed an amplifier for that because later our high-end amplifier and speakers were taken away. The third break-in involved a couple of stand-fans. This proved too much for the congregation. They made special prayers and the thieves quietly returned the fans.

Yesterday, when I visited the surau for maghrib (sunset) prayers and a religious talk, I found the surau in darkness. I was told that the cable supplying electricity to the car park block where our surau is located was stolen in broad daylight.

I was speechless.

Labels: Friday prayers, lawbreakers