Traditions

Now that we are home and after that spell of absence from our gin rummy game, all members of the gang , craved for the game. For the first two weeks home, both of us got tied up with domestic errands in addition to functions we had to attend and exciting news that Aida is on the way to her third child. Indeed I have always told Mazuin and Yasmin and Aida included that now that they are still young and capable, the time for additional children is here and now. Many a time I joked with Mazuin that she looks capable for a minimum of eight children ! Anyway, we had no gin at first but finally when we did manage to have one.This time around, the old man, Sabri, was mighty pleased with his wonderful show of luck in the game. But what made the game less effortless this time was the new cards shuffler that we brought home from Chicago. Gone are the days of the manual shuffling which could become very arduous given the minimum three decked cards we use and the long hours of the sessions. Now everybody seemed more relaxed and indeed the new shuffling contraption becomes an attractive item to all of us and a willing hand to be at it too ! Only thing is, a loser is still a loser but this time with a slight compensation that the winner will do the shuffling instead.

Aside from gin, a new game was brought home to the gang and this was introduced and played at Chicago. It was Joanne who taught it to us. With the small company that we had in Chicago when at the most only four of us played the game, Machiavelli ( I am not so sure about the spelling here ) proved to be not practical for five persons or more in that as Sabri said, "Before we could even get into the game, it’s over ! " And even when the game is played, so much time goes in between before the next player gets to play it, and Sabri says, "that even leaves me time to take a nap and lost count that we ever play the game at all !" With those remarks by the most senior in our group, Machiavelli was abandoned for good ! It also goes to show, basically people are entrenched in traditions and traditions die hard in this case.

That reminds me of the traditional customs that are still entrenched amongst the old Malay folks. When it comes to weddings , there must be the numerous exchange of gifts between the couple’s parents, which today entails expensive branded products or items. To top it all, the wedding reception itself should be held in prestigious and almost always very expensive hotels, to the detriment of the paymasters, who are none other than the parents themselves ! Some of these weddings are extended to days on end and almost always have the same crowd presence. The whole exercise to my mind is not worth the money at all. With the rising cost of living in the world of today, it is about time that our people trim down on these costly traditions. Now that wedding facilities are made available in mosques, this should be more practical. I know of one of my friends who then held the top position in the government, who had his two children married at the same time in the Masjid Negara with minimum fuss, as he described it. That should have been exemplary to the others but then nobody wanted to remember it !

Another tradition is grave digging. With all the modern digging tools that we have these days, it is a marvel that grave diggings are still done manually and even it is done mechanically, when it comes to the final filling up of the grave, we still resort to manual efforts which not only take a long time to complete plus the physical exhaustions of those involved who in most instance are old people doing it whilst the young enjoy by the side seeing them do it.

Why cannot they use the back hoe of the excavator machine to fill up the grave! No, when I mentioned this at the recent burial of my cousin at the family’s graveyard in Sri Menanti, the answer that I got was that it was simply not traditional to do it that way. For all intents and purposes, someone just needs to do it this way, and soon others will follow, I am sure! I recalled the occasion and experience I went through over the burial of the late Tuanku Munawir. Without any thoughts I was one of the volunteers to help fill up the grave. Being still young then and physically fit it should not have been any problem to hold the 'changkul' and push the wet earth onto the grave hole. It was out of sheer pride and shame that I continued doing it when at one point I experienced excruciating pains around my waste line as a result of having to push and lift the wet earth, not to mention having to really changkul the stubborn area to loosen up the earth. It was only at the points of feeling fainting spells and black spots on my vision that I stopped.

Ever since then I cease to help out at the graves of any one. Of course when I relate such events to Ainul such us the occasions when I helped my grandma at the padi fields, it was a laugh to Ainul. She can never comprehend that I would do any of those things. In return I often tease her that she cannot qualify from a kampong when her early childhood days were in the town of Kulim! Under the circumstances, she can never relate to my experience and hence her disbelief that I ever went through a complete kampong life as a kampong boy. This one thing I have never revealed to anyone. Even my elder brother used to nickname me as a kampong boy whenever my dress was slightly off! Of course that part of the dressing remains my weakness, because I cannot comprehend and recognize the right colours for which occasion as far as dressing goes. What the heck, what’s a wife for!

It was also the tradition that circumcision should be done the traditional way which entails the "victims" having to wake up at three or at the latest four o'clock in the morning and immerse themselves in the cold river water or else keep bathing with the stored water in the bathroom until they shiver to the bones. The idea is to have the lull effect on their penis. Once this stage is reached, the "victims" are deemed ready for the traditional medicine man who would place two bamboo sticks firmly clipped to the penis and with a razor blade, the necessity would be done with. As for any undue pain that might entail after that, it is all left to the individual tolerances. What a way. I was very scared of this thing then.

My elder brother went through it together with others then, and the story of his experience created horror in my mind. Hence I continuously avoided to be circumcised at an early age so much so, I had to have it done when I was ten years old which was considered overage for such thing. However, I got lucky. My parents were in Ipoh and my dad was a good friend of the State physician and surgeon, the late Dr Datuk Megat Khas. The doctor had always expounded on the modern way of circumcision to which the society then deemed as an outrageous idea and totally unacceptable religiously since even the holy Prophet had it done their traditional way. Luckily for me, my late dad went along modern thinking and decided to follow the doctor’s suggestion to have circumcision done in the hospital the surgical way. I was lucky indeed!

At the College those days, there were a lot of others who underwent late age circumcision. At least I know of three of my classmates who went through this and one of them to as late as when he was in Form Two! Of course we all made a joke of it later to him. Nowadays it is just the opposite. All my grandchildren had theirs done almost at the time of birth and if at all delayed it was at the stage when they knew no pain. The methods use varies. It’s direct surgical or indirect deprivation of the blood to the affected skin to let it drop off naturally without any blood or pain, for that matter.

However, to be circumcised, a traditional deemed for the Muslims convert must surely be something frightful to these people. It is said however, although I cannot verify the truth of this, most western people do circumcise when they were young due to acceptable health reason. Hence, we had assumed, in the case of our son-in-law, John this question never arisen at all when he got married to Farah, although at one time when Ainul asked her if John has circumcised when he proposed to her, her reply was positive.

But then Ainul said, "how did you know?"