What Hari Raya Means to Me (Additional Assignment)

BY FARHIRA FARUDIN

Our kampung in Masjid Tanah, Melaka

Believe it or not, I have always had mixed feelings for Hari Raya.

Hari Raya was never the same to me ever since I lost my mother in 2010. Every Raya since felt mundane at its best, though I am grateful to still be able to share the festive with my family, a huge part of me is still affected by the tremendous loss.

I try to enjoy Hari Raya still, in the best way I can. Hari Raya after all is about the gathering. With the passing of my mother, there are several relatives that became distant, and there are also the ones who became closer. Over the years, I try to appreciate the people who stick around, and wish the best for the ones who don’t. It’s all about gathering with your family first, above everyone else.

My typical Raya would start on the night before. My family would drive to balik kampung from Kuala Lumpur to Melaka. If there’s anything in particular that sets my family different than others, is that no one actually lives in Melaka. We have no close relatives living in Masjid Tanah. Most of my relatives live in Kuala Lumpur, so Melaka is merely a hotspot for us to gather around during festive season. 

With that being said, coming back to Melaka only during festive season means putting the extra work into cleaning the kampung once we arrive. The place is a mess, so everyone would lend hands together to make sure our house is ready for Raya. 

We would also cook Raya meals together at night. I came from a family of food people, so dieting during Raya is a total loss and working out after Raya feels a must. We would cook meals from beef and chicken rendang to kuah kacang to sambal ikan bilis to lontong and many more. There would be three different drinks too. And multiple choices of hand-made and store bought kuih raya to choose from. I guess my family takes Raya food very seriously. Not so fun fact: my family had been eating lemang in pitcher plant for years. Pitcher plants would be stock up in a pile at the back of wet kitchen, and my grandmother would fill them in with glutinous rice and coconut milk, and there you have it: lemang in pitcher plants. When I was in primary school, it’s a well-known fact that pitcher plant is an endangered species, so it’s always weird to see so many of them are being used as lemang wrappers. Now that we know that it’s not only endangered but also unhealthy, I don’t think we will be eating lemang in pitcher plants in the nearest time soon.

Raya 2019 with my family

Talking about kampung actually makes me miss it a lot. I’ve always had a penchant for living in kampung houses. The cold breeze in the morning makes up for the scorching hot afternoon. And at night the breeze gets cold again and you would share blankets among your siblings. We only have three rooms in the house, and there are 7 families. First come first serve, if your family arrives at the kampung first you get to choose your own room. Those who didn’t get to “book” the rooms would have to sleep together in the living room. Every breath you take feels a lot fresher than in the city, I guess that’s the best part about living in kampung – it’s way less polluted than the city. Kampung indefinitely has less noises too. There’s no way honking of vehicles stranded on the road due to traffic jams like in the city. I also love the modest lifestyle. There are no big shopping malls, no fancy clothes, no big cars driving down the road, nothing too expensive for food and drinks. Everything feels far normal than the city. We have a great scenery too. A paddy field located not far away from our kampung house. There’s an abandoned well that I have always been told not to play around it as a kid. 

There’s also an old grave near our kampung – believed to bury a Japanese army during the Japanese occupation. My dad once told me about a Japanese man whp was abandoned by his troop during the war. He was the sole Japanese army left in the kampung and he ended up marrying a local woman and became an ustaz. I never knew if the story was ever real, but it’s my favourite tale.

Raya 2019 with my friends

Celebrating Raya as you grow up becomes less fun, as they would say. I guess it’s because you rarely receive duit raya and it’s your turn to give rather than receive. For me personally, Raya has become less fun not just because of the duit raya, but because of the sense of belonging that has decreased slowly. Like I said, Raya has always been mundane for me ever since my mother passed away. So it’s always strange for me to have good times, even if I try to. It’s nice to catch up with some familiar faces but every year we would do ask the same set of questions once and you realise none of it really matters. Sometimes we do the things that we do not because they bring us joy, but because it’s the tradition. And for someone like me who still lingers around the loss of my mother, it’s hard to find joy in celebrating an annual festive. I always jokingly told myself, perhaps I’ll find Raya to be fun again someday when I am 30 and married and have kids. Maybe I’ll find the meaning in Raya once again. 

Celebrating Hari Raya with CMC members during Sinar Lebaran 2019