Puasa Oh Puasa

Iklan Yusof Taiyoob, tagged homemade biscuit pictures in FB, girls rushing to puasa ganti. Yes, it's that time of the year. Puasa is coming up so what better way to commemorate this special occasion than to recall some of the best and memorable puasa experiences I had growing up.

Ehem...

Oh it started sejak azali lagi. The first time I remembered was when I first started fasting. I was seven and it was a hot hot day. It was so hot and I couldn't drink so I took a shower instead. And that's how I disqualify a whole month of puasa, by drinking while showering. Three years later, I would consciously cheat by eating lunch at my school canteen. Nobody would notice because 98% of school population was chinese and the 2% malays were alway playing hide and seek behind the school compound.

Ponteng?

I woke a little bit late than usual. I was 10. It was already 7.10 a.m. Alamak, the bus will arrive in 20 minutes. I took a hasty shower, grabbed 2 slices of bread and a slice of cheddar and took off to the bus's picking point. School was okay, homework aplenty and lunch was like the rest of the year: hot, stale and most probably cancerous.

The bus took me back home earlier than usual, pelik. I was usually one of the last boy to be dropped off but recently, I am always one of the earliest. With an hour to spare I went to my favourite warong and had a hearty serving of modified maggie ayam. When I got home, umi asked me to follow her to the pasar malam to buy tonight's dinner. We bought roti jala, cendol, karipap and a few more assorted kuehs. I bought a plastic of sugarcane cubes for myself.

We arrived home and Bapak, Hadi and Saiful is all set for dinner. As I serve the dishes on the table, everyone waited like gargoyle statues and looked at the food with menacing eyes, pelik. A few minutes later, we heard the azan and my father read out loud a long prayer, pelik. Then everyone ate dates, oh my god. Hari ni PUASA!!!!

Mandi Hujan

I'm not sure how it happened but the memory is stuck in mind for so long. Maybe it was one of the happiest moments in my life. It was raining heavily and it was nearing Maghrib. The whole family was outside the house, drenched in rainwater.

Umi blasted high pressured water with a hose that almost took my pants off. In a whoosh, Bapak lifted me up and carried me around the lawn as I stretched my arms and legs and shouted "Thunder, thunder, thunder, Thundercats, Whoaaaaaa!"

Umi twisted the hose nozzle and blasted mist and soon there were small rainbows right in front of me: double rainbow moment. Hadi clapped stupidly and Saiful was mesmerized by the layer of colourful car oil on the cement pavement. And then it azan-ed and my parents realized that they forgot to buy anything for dinner so Bapak rushed to the kitchen with wet clothes still on and prepared his infamous maggie goreng. Best. Buka. Puasa. Ever.

Puasa Oh Puasa...

Do you remember your best puasa moments?