Ramadan Reminiscences

Ramadan, when I was at varsity, was observed in end-winter. Short, grey, cold days and long, dark nights. Unlike S, Lin and I never bothered to get up for pre-dawn meal (S actually got up to have a bowl of cornflakes!). To me then, my beauty sleep was more important (of course now I know that having pre-dawn meal is strongly encouraged) and the short, cold fasting days made getting through Ramadan a lot easier. Besides, all my alarm clocks I ever had at uni gave up on me. I could somehow sleep blissfully through the ringing; in fact once an annoyed flatmate woke me up [not during Ramadan]; she could hear my alarm from her room across the corridor and I couldn’t, despite the clock being inches away from me. After that, I observed that the clock [and its subsequent replacements] all refused to ring. Maybe after a while, they ran out of their ringing ability. (By the way, I somehow managed to sleep through the deafening fire alarms at least twice while at graduate school.)

Anyway, one evening during our first year, as Lin and I were mulling over what to prepare for our ‘break fast’, our guy friends came over excitedly to deliver a bowl of chicken tom yam soup. They told us to sample it and give feedback on its taste. Like hello, even if we weren’t able to fast then, we wouldn’t admit it of course! Come break fast time, we attacked the tom yam with great anticipation. One minute we were excited and the next minute I had tears running down my cheeks. For the tom yam was oh so very hot and spicy that our English flatmates looked at us in concern and worry.

Two of our girl friends were especially known for their culinary skills. One preferred to make Eid cookies and stayed up all night too on the eve of Eid to prepare rendang. Another preferred to make Malay desserts (kuih) for break fast. Heck, another senior (a guy) told me he preferred baking cakes to cookies as he argued that it was simpler making cakes – just mix everything and put the mixture into the oven. It was all I could do to keep my jaw from dropping. Oh, and another male classmate attempted to make lemang, using kitchen foil and I don’t know what else. I heard he succeeded although I didn’t get to sample it.

As for Lin and me? To be perfectly honest, I can’t for the life of me recall now what we had for break fast. But I remember boiling instant ketupat on the eve of Eid and heating up the frozen rendang or flossed meat that Lin’s mother sent over. Err, and I think Mr. Brahim came to the rescue too. Oh and in order to recreate Eid as she celebrated it at home, I helped Lin to make some chocolate cake – there I’d be sitting on the kitchen counter, beating the darned eggs and flour mixture by hand mind you - and somehow the cake turned out alright every Ramadan that we baked it. I also tried – and failed miserably – to make cheese cakes and the last time I tried, I vowed I would never again make cheese cakes. Hmmph! You can’t blame me for trying.

Our (that’s Lin and I, the partners in crime) ahem, lack of culinary skills had always been a matter of amusement to the others and despite this, for reasons I can’t explain, never deterred them from asking us to host ‘open house’ every year. Such big bullies they were. We teamed up with the guys, smart girls that we were, and everything always turned out fine and dandy, you’ll be glad to know. No burnt or over-fried chicken or anything of that sort. The guys came to our rescue [c’mon the best chefs in the world are men anyway!].

During my first Ramadan, I had to scour the compact city to hunt for an underskirt: see, I remembered to pack a couple of kurung but forgot to pack my petticoat (duh!). Of course, this was a shopping challenge for English ladies don’t seem to have the need for long underskirts. After hunting high and low, going in and out of shops – there weren’t many in that God-forsaken city and this in itself made it even more difficult for me to achieve my mission – I finally managed to find one. Otherwise, it’d be a freezing Eid for me waist down.

The first year I celebrated Eid abroad, I celebrated the first day of Eid twice: first in England before hopping on the train and then ferry to Dublin [all by myself] because that year, the Republic of Ireland celebrated Eid a day later. No, I didn’t skip any lectures as it was spring break then.

Our second and third Eid fell during term time and we showed up for lectures in our colourful kurung and baju Melayu. It was an eye-catching sight for our classmates as normally we’d be clad in our t-shirts/shirts/sweaters and jeans. I remember making visits in the evenings and playing in the snow in between, yes, in our Eid outfit!

When I did MBA, Ramadan was in early winter. And because I didn’t really mix with Malaysians then, I celebrated Eid by visiting but was spared the request of having to host any open house. Phew! Not that I was mentally prepared to do that, not even now!

And now, back to reality. It’s just so hot, hot, hot here (OK, it’s pouring now but the weekend was simply scorching. But apparently not hot enough to deter shoppers from thronging downtown KL in search of their Eid preparations. It was bumper-to-bumper traffic in downtown KL on Saturday afternoon it seemed). Global warming has set in, y’know. And now, I simply must get up for pre-dawn meal (my beauty sleep is still important but I’d risk fainting if I don’t have pre-dawn meal). Even with pre-dawn meal, I sometimes still feel weak and tired. Thankfully, I don’t sleep through alarm clocks anymore.

And at the weekend, Arsenal shot one goal, enough to hammer West Ham.

Hamilton was the fastest in the wet, wet, wet Japanese circuits.

Irish eyes were not smiling as they got knocked out of the Rugby World Cup.

Cor, lunchtime is going to end soon. Ta, y’all.