The Day That Made Me Smile

It was Khamis malam Jumaat (i.e. Thursday night mat salleh style). Alone in my dimlighted room, I was torn between two delicate choices - going to the surau or the event.

I was no angel, but I tried to be a better muslim - a promise to myself to go to surau at least once a week.

My thinking cap was on the loose. Then an idea struck me.

"Dad, jom solat sama-sama," I asked.

An awkward silence filled the air.

"OK."

So I prayed jemaah with Dad. I literally cried because I never prayed with my Dad before in my entire life. When the solat was over, he looked at me.

"Why don't you lead the doa," he said.

I did the doa gladly and fully from the bottom of my heart and soul. Tremendous joy filled me from within. I wouldn't have dared to dream about this when I was a kid. Now, it's real.

Then came the sms.

"The event was delayed to make way for those going to the surau tonight."

Another pleasant surprise for the day. I dashed out of the house and drove straight to Bangsar.

Staring at the rear car mirror, my vain self indulged in dabbing some rouge-aux-levres et fard aux joues.

Then, a certain inkling flickered from within me to recite ayat kursi, for the sake of only God knows why. Seriously, only He knows. So I recited anyway.

That day was different, I thought. Walking towards Haven*, my eyes wondered into the sequined like stars dancing in the sky.

As I stepped into Haven, I thought I found something heavenly there.

Or did I not?

*Haven: It's a hangout place.

ps: the author may not continue the tale so pepandai sendirilah eh.

Trinketful Facelift!

Me likey! Thanks to Perky mindful trinkets is now flaunting trinkets with lovely fleurs and leaves.

Like it? Non?

Life As It Is

If you noticed, I've avoided very much on writing about my personal life. Simply being, I preserved a certain barrier that I don't wish others to see. I believe to some extent, we all have our own barriers to 'protect' ourselves because once a upon a time, we were hurt by so-so by being who we truly are. Don't believe me?

Ever noticed people concealed their sadness when their lips expressed words of joy? The wise ones always see right through us. Some say, the eyes never lie. (I still struggle with this statement because I can never intepret people's eyes till today).

As adults, we often copycat other adults. A lot of emotions are supressed to gain others' approval (parents, bosses, friends etc) and to avoid others from manipulating us. The truth is, not everybody will approve and/or manipulate us.

This explains a lot why my childhood is mostly happy. I hardly can recall anything sad when I was younger. Short periods of pain expressed through excessive crying and long periods of joy expressed through jumping around till mom shouted "Stop it!". Why? Simply because when I was young I was myself. However, life is not without risks. Confining emotions to avoid hurt may save us for short term but has long term irreversible effects.

For example, my father is very distant emotionally. I never understood why he doesn't bank his emotions on family gatherings, birthdays etc. I realised back then when he was younger, there was too much drama in his family - too much that it shut him down. He never remembers our birthdays nor bothers about finding them out. He hardly even asks about my day. It's so Asian, if you know what I mean.

To make life better for myself, I try to differentiate between real and perceived hurt. As long as I am not physically hurt, I learn to walk away from the past hurt. Sounds like no brainer, but it made a whole difference in my life.

So my point is, we all have masks - masks we think others would approve of us.

We are hardly honest and this scarcity increases with age. So I may not be entirely honest in my blogposts, but I do slip in some honest clues.

Perhaps, this is why honest blogs are more famous than others. Particularly when their honesty are interestingly controversial ones.

Remember the Datin Diaries? If you've read that blog before it was banned, you'd know what I mean.

Misadventures of the Spirits (finale)

Returning to the living room, I saw my comrades about to leave. Curious, I patted A's shoulder.

Me: So, what did he say about your problems?

A: Oh, just that I have the same problems since I was a teenager. Hence, reasons for me not being able to find a life partner.

Me: Ah, you serious? Or are you just not working hard enough to find a man yourself?

A: Not really.... (a long pause). What Ustaz said really made sense. I suppose I need to remove this 'thing' before I end up being single for the rest of my life.

Me: Erh, OK...

Whatever that 'thing' was, I hope that she'll find an end to her singledom - be it supernaturally or naturally.

We (A, S, Ustaz and I) left soon after and headed home. I could sense a relief in W's eyes and his sisters. Perhaps a heavy burden has lifted from them.

I could only imagine it...

It had been such a day. As we stepped outside, streaks of darkness slowly formed in the sky.

THE END of a true story, one of my many adventures (for now)

***

I am a little apprehensive about writing the Epilogue lest making this blog a story telling one. Perhaps someday, when I ran out of ideas I'll write about it.

In the mean time, time to get back to more self indulgent entries about me. Yeah, ME. Hehe. I know I'm such an attention whore.

Have a nice day people. Take care of yourselves and each other (whoever the other may be) :)

Misadventures of the Spirits (part 3)

Take 5: À minuit avec le point noir
(at midnight with noktahhitam)

Eddie @ le point noir: Just finish that damn story lah. Put that story in one entry. Why do you need to have part 1 and part 2 and all?

Me: Because I didn't have time to finish it everytime I write. It wasn't on purpose lah!

Eddie @ le point noir: Ye lah, I'm officially your stalker*. I read everything.

Me: Erh, OK.

Yes, the delay and truncation is untentional OK? So I am finishing the main part today. Finally. Just so you know the earlier story line past posts are here:

Part 1, part 2 and prologue.

* Don't get him wrong - stalker as in, blog stalker.

Next: part 4 and epilogue.

***
It was almost sunset when tea was served. Somehow that warm sip from the cup seemed to calm everyone. At least I made myself useful for others, I thought.

While drinking tea, Ustaz was chanting away his zikir. The rest of us were silent, mostly struckdumb by that eerie laughing.

I looked at her, W's sister. Worn out but somehow she looked rejuvenated. Prettier in fact. I just couldn't make up the reasons why.

I asked A if she noticed anything different about her - just make sure that my eyes weren't fooling me.

"Yeah, I noticed it too."

Weird.

Anyway, Ustaz said the reason for her being possessed were doings of her ex-husband. Let's just say he was (may still is), a very, very jealous man. Maybe close to psychotic. God knows. After the divorce, he couldn't accept her being with another man.

And so she admitted too. She noticed that her husband was still very possessive despite not being his wife anymore. In fact, he would somehow 'know' her whereabouts even without telling anyone. Since the stalking began, she became nomadic for fear of gangguan and some peace of mind. Funny that he even knows the location of her house (spoken verbally) even without her telling. Even weirder, the spirits that stalked her even looked like her ex-husband - haunting her night and day.

Matters were worse that she couldn't find a proper job because of her husband's doing. To put it simply, she was having a lot of difficulties at work, especially restarting her career of being dependant on him for a long time. Hatred, ignored and isolated - just to name a few of those difficulties mentioned.

Still, these facts pointing to the supernatural could still be rebutted. For example, her husband stalking - could be he's spying on her. Spiritual stalking - could be the mind problem, possibly schizophrenic. Job problems - could be personality problem, especially after having no working life for a number years.

These were just mere 'clues' to an X-file if you'd ask me. What stunned me was part of her storyline:

"I know that he even has these sort of ilmu (knowledge). I've confronted him before when we were still married. He admitted to having them."

I was speechless. So many questions bouncing in my mind but mostly, why? Why would someone learn and use these blackmagic just to hurt the ones they love? Are they insane or what?

Unbelievable.

In the end, people being people, it's hard to make sense out of them.

Some humans are worse than animals. Even animals love their kins. Perhaps, there were too many reasons could have made her ex-husband the way he was. Tired of speculating, I slipped away into one of the rooms and started praying Asar.

From a distance, I saw A was tête-à-tête with Ustaz.

Misadventures of the Spirits (Prologue)

We were in the heat of our favourite topic. Men. With coffee at Starbucks and time in our hands (and loads of it), it's hard not to do the usual girls-night-out-thing - gossiping, gosipping... and more gossiping.

I've always been intrigued with A. Successful, beautiful and nice - not the type who'd have problems getting attention from the opposite sex.

Such luck we both have with men. We both had plentiful heartaches and meeting the wrong type of men.

While at least I got hitched with some, she got none. To put it simply, her courtings were all hangat-hangat tahi ayam. When the relationship were about to kick start, men just 'fade' away. Why? Only God knows.

Later, my mobile rang. It's not exactly the distraction we were welcoming for. After much contemplation, I picked it up.

"Hello," a male voice was on the line. It was my officemate. W.

"I need your helplah."

"What?"

"It's my sister. She's acting weird. Always meracau (hysteric). It's been a couple of weeks now. Do you know any ustaz who can help her?"

I mean of all persons, why me? Does my forehead spells saviour of humanity or something? So happen that my family has some sort of history in these 'things', I do know a particular Ustaz cum exorcist.

With desperation trailing in his voice, the least I could do is to give Ustaz's number to him.

"Yeah, I do. It'll be quite a drive to his place, unless, he is in town."

And so the journey began.

To be continued. Yes, yes, true story (with much lesser details). Part 1 and Part 2 here.

Misadventures of the Spirits (part 2)

"What's wrong with my sister?" W asked.

"Oh, she's got some 'disturbances' (a.k.a. gangguan). Don't worry, we'll see the extent of this problem later."

W's sister stepped outside after the bathing ritual. She looked slightly invigorated, in my view at least. Ustaz asked how she felt.

"OK."

Ustaz asked W's sister to lie on her back, covered with kain batik. Slowly, Ustaz was chanting verses from the al-Quran while moving his hands, from a certain distance, starting from her head to her toes. Looked to me like a method from aura therapy I saw in TV.

Then, came the evil-stepmother-but-not-her-voice-to-begin-with laughter. It had a sense of intimidation at start, ended with a trail of pain. That sound sticks to my mind til this day.

Later, silence filled the air. I looked at S and A. As bewildered as I was, they were.

Moments after, she whimpered while complaining about having pains all over her body. Ustaz kept chanting more Quranic verses aloud. I was chanting ayat kursi silently in my heart. I bet at this time, everyone in that room was chanting certain verses under their breath too. Honestly, I was spooked but I tried remaining calm.

Before we knew it, the exorcism was over. Tired of watching, I headed to the kitchen and made tea on the host's behalf.

Then, the truth began to unveil itself..

To be continued. (Sorry people, you've got to wait. I'm really busy these days)

Hiatus

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I had limited time+energy during Ramadhan. Twas work plus combination of either being in surau, sleep, waking up for qiam* and early mornings for sahur. Plus, my recent illness has stopped me from doing anything else but the above.

Despite tiredness and all, I am quite happy with Ramadhan overall. In fact, I miss it already. Especially lailatul qadr** when the ambiance more serene than usual. Could be psychological effects of being in the holy month, I suppose. Wallahualam.

Yet, I have too many tales to tell, too little time. Mere short entries won't do justice to my month long (mis?)adventures.

Another day perhaps.

Anyway, Selamat Hari Raya Aidulfitri and Maaf Zahir dan Batin. Really minta maaf, if I offended anyone.

*: qiamulail - means waking up at night and do some additional prayers (i.e. the non-compulsory ones). Yeap, I really tried. It was no easy feat but I'm glad I managed to do it! Can't imagine those people who do it every night....

**lailatul qadr - try googling. ;)