This year’s Aidilfitri festivities will definitely be different. Opportunities to visit family members and loved ones will be limited. There will be no open houses or ‘kenduri’ to attend and mingle with relatives.
– Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Prime Minister
Perhaps my earliest episode related to Hari Raya was in the early sixties, though it might be not the Aidilfitri celebration per se but during the fasting month of Ramadan.
This memory is so faint that it was only years later, namely during my secondary school days starting from 1968, that I came to know about that particular Muslim celebration.
During that particular episode circa 1960 or 1961, mom and I were staying with a Malay family at Kampung Melango, Saratok. It was years later that I found from mom that our stay during Ramadan at the residence of Udi and family was to make it easier for her to regularly visit the Saratok Government Health Clinic that only catered for outpatients.
There was no road connectivity yet to the longhouses then. A longboat ride would usually take at least five hours from our longhouse.
Udi’s family comprised his mother and two sisters Minah and Timah who were about six or seven years my senior. Udi was a young man in his early twenties then whereas his mother was slightly older than mom, it seemed.
She was a widow. After recalling that I was privileged to a good array of cakes in the afternoon alone, I realised it was a fasting month so the two sisters just let me enjoy my cakes alone.
In 1967, dad led me and mom to a Raya visit popularly known as ngabang Raya to Udi’s family, travelling by bus and staying overnight.
During my secondary school days, especially in 1972 (Form Five), Ramadan days were sometime hilarious. I would become a very important friend to two of my Muslim friends who are now high-achieving members of society.
One was a classmate whereas the other was in Form Five Science. Both needed my help to “smuggle” for them lunch in return for extra boiled eggs for my breakfast.
My classmate Dr S obtained his PhD in Sociology whereas Abdul R was my university mate earning a degree in Pharmacology. Both of them took their “smuggled” lunch during Ramadan inside their respective mosquito nets. Such episodes became items of laughter when we met again years later.
It was a year later while studying Lower Six in Methodist Secondary School, Sibu that I debuted in ngabang Raya there. Leading our ngabang group was Temenggong Jonathan Bangau — he was the first Iban to visit China (for the Canton Trade Fair in 1960).
We would come in two cars. I was the youngest and the only student in the group. Bangau and my eldest brother Edward were very close friends. Our favourite ngabang destinations were Kampung Nangka, Kampung Dato, Kampung Hilir and Kampung Bandung.
In Kampung Nangka, we never missed visiting the residence of Pengiran Ali Basah, my brother Edward’s very close friend.
When I was posted as a lecturer to Bintangor’s Rejang Teachers College in 1979, I rejoined the group in ngabang Raya 1980 — minus Temenggong Bangau who passed away some years earlier.
We would usually come in one car and our targets were the same. It was in Kampung Nangka that our slightly intoxicated driver knocked on the door of a celebrant about 20 minutes past midnight on the first day of Raya circa 1981.
Host Samad (now deceased), my brother’s colleague and good friend, happily opened the door and told his wife to heat some of the food for the three of us.
It was such a remarkable celebrative spirit. Of course, our target was not the food or drink but more toward wishing them “Maaf Zahir dan Batin”. Anyway, I was relieved that Mrs Samad served us coffee and perhaps, that was the only time coffee was served to us during ngabang Raya in Sibu.
I can recall in 1982, Samad and gang were already calling from outside the gate of Edward’s residence in Rajang Park, Sibu at 7.30am on the first day of Gawai Dayak (June 1). I was renting next door with a friend.
Many a time, during our Raya visits in Sibu, we were always accorded special attention, especially by hosts who were great buddies of my brother. Pengiran Ali Basah was one of them.
This year’s Raya celebration, in line with the government’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) to curb the spread of Covid-19, is unprecedented. Celebrants have no choice but to embrace new norms and confine celebrations to family members only.
No ngabang or balik kampung is allowed. Anyway, I wish all celebrants a pleasant day.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
