Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Ramadhan: Fragments of Memories Recollected from Childhood

hehehe...long title, eh? trying to emulate Wordsworth's feat when he gave the title to his famous Ode:Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Childhood. b4 i begin my entry today, i'd like to wish a happy ramadhan to all fellow muslims. may we get the most from this holy month, n may we repent our wrongdoings in the past, n may we have a better life ahead.i was discussing ramadhan with a few teachers in the staffroom this afternoon, and naturally, we discussed wat ramadhan symbolises for us. aside from the usual religious connotations, we muslims have a lot of memories associated with ramadhan that we cherish until the day we die.

when i was a little girl when there was still no ramadhan bazaar around, my neighbours n my mother would exchange food, especially desserts. i particularly prefer the desserts than the main meals, n bcoz of this i developed a partiality for puding buih, which is a pink coloured rose flavoured meringue agar with custard sauce. for me, that dessert spells ramadhan, bcoz i only see n eat it once a year. only last year did i know that eventhough my mother used to make the pudding when i was small, she never likes it. starting ramadhan in the year '99, i continued the tradition n has since made the pudding every ramadhan.if u fast in kuala terengganu, u dont have to listen to the muezzin's call to prayer. we have a special device, a cannon which is fired to mark the breaking of the fast, 10 mins b4 imsak to warn the muslims, n the actual imsak. they also fire 7 shots i think, on the eve of raya, and also on raya morning, to mark sultan's arrival (or is it return?) at the mosque to pray. u cant miss it, its thunderous sound can be heard throughout kuala terengganu district. n most kuala terengganu ppl grew up listening to this cannon shots that to us it has become synonymous with ramadhan.

selamat berpuasa to all.

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