Brass Tacks

I know for a fact a lot of retirees tried to venture into business but a lot of them had failed miserably to the point of bankruptcy for some. It is to be expected of course when they knew very little or hardly anything about the intricacies of the business world. To lose all that well-earned life’s gratuity almost overnight to a misventured business could put some into perpetual shock and mental agony which to some would lead to heart attack of some sorts.

Others, of course, resort to the easy living by accepting the fact that they should now lead the rustic life of the retirees by non-failure to pray five times daily in the local mosques and eventually become an active member of the mosques committees who composed of volunteers with expertise of their own as a carry over from their former profession.

That speaks well for some of the mosques in the country where these professionals devote their energy , time and for some, their money too, to make their mosque the talk of the town, so to speak. Hence we get wonderful meals at these mosques during the fasting month and at other times of the year, regular religious reading of the Quran and even simple wedding ceremonies are made available at these mosques.

The Tahiyat Awal

When we mention mosques, visitors to our country and more so if they are Muslims cannot fail to comment and even praise the existence of and the easy availability to pray. For us Muslims, there is no excuse not to perform the five prayers of the day in our country. We have the mosques and suraus within sights wherever we are.

The same goes to other religious buildings too for the rest of the community and religious groups. Undoubtedly this speaks well for our country and this might be the contributory factor as to why we enjoy peace and harmony all these years past and hopefully for the future too. In the turbulent world of today when anything could explode into anything catastrophic when the masses could lose their senses, the need for spiritual calmness for the souls become needful indeed to create rational thinking and patience.

The Sujud

Hence the indirect contribution of the existence of these religious houses for our people. Many a time when we travel our highways and in need for a short break, for us Muslims the suraus at our highway stopovers provide the best restful place for both body and mind and the assurance that we do not miss our daily prayers.

All praise and thanks to the vision of our Tun Mahadzir for such facilities on our wonderful highways, which continue to be expanded by our government for now and the future. Blessed indeed are we to be able to drive to almost all parts of our country today without the apprehension and the anxieties of the past when it comes to the call of Nature.

Remember those past years when for ladies especially, the dread of drinking too much and not being able to reach a suitable place to ease yourself! Of course for us guys, there’s the bush and the trees to do ours!

I gotta go!

The only thing that is still upsetting to all of us is that our travelers must learn to respect the needful to flush the toilets after use and avoid throwing cigarette butts on the urinal outlets. Fortunate for these stopovers, they have maintenance operators, unlike, unfortunately at almost all our mosques and suraus. Need we say more what one could find therein !

This reminds me of the training we all received when we were at the MCKK when the British were our teachers and Headmasters then. At all our toilets a special framed notice “Leave it as clean as you find it” for all of us to notice and to obey, was conspicuously hanged on the doors of each toilet. Simply put these toilets were supposed to be clean and serviceable when we use them and hence we were expected to leave it after use as clean as we found it which tradition is carried on until this day. Isn’t that neat?

May be we ought to have this too at all our mosques toilets and our public toilets too, more especially at the petrol stations. Generally Petronas stations have cleaner toilets than the others, although we have come across some others which are really super modern with automatic water pipes at the wash basins and urinal outlets. But still, the general public need to be more civic minded, especially the smokers who still throw their cigarette butts at these urinals.

Talking about smoking, our very close family friend Wong Kok Chee who claims he started smoking at the age of five says when Sabri told him smoking is definitely a killer, answered “If I stop smoking, I will die! It happens to a friend of mine who’s a heavy smoker than me some time ago. He died almost instantly when he decided to stop smoking !"

The Regular Dunhill

Such loyalty to smoking. No wonder the world has made very little if at all any progress to try to deter people from smoking! The diehards will forever defend the needful to smoke. But who are these diehards really - the educated ones or the simply labor lines folks? We had no problem convincing our house male helper to stop smoking which he did almost overnight although he was then smoking a packet a day.

At one time, he had very bad and continuos coughs and at the same time he experienced continuos pain within his body especially around the groins. A medical check ups at the University Hospital revealed an infection of his liver and possibly lungs too. When Ainul told him that his smoking habit would kill him much sooner than he would think, Irman ( his name ) stopped smoking the very next day!

Irman

For the Muslims, even the “fatwa” by the religious bodies announcing smoking as haram, bears no effect on the masses.

Simply put, cigarettes are irresistible to the users!

written by Tunku Farid
Edited by Aida Halim