Anyway, I love to go to a wedding for reasons that I want to share with you all. If you backtrack for a few years and observe how a wedding was organized in the old days you’ll know what I mean. It is a time when the whole kampong will get together and collaboratively make a wedding the most memorable for the ‘pengantin’. It is a time for the family to get together, from afar they will come to stay for a week to help up and catch-up on each other, cousins (like I used to) will discuss how ones have grown and do new things in life and also matchmaking on the part of aunties and grandmas for their sons and daughters. This normally would result in another wedding do the following year. Of course not to mention some of our own endeavors to become Romeo as we discovered (our hormone as well) some of our cousins and long relatives turn up to be a princess. A lot of your female cousins will be eyeing you as well, albeit behind curtains and while you were helping out with manly things like chopping woods and getting the tent ready. Some times it became so obvious to our uncles and aunties that everyone laughed at our antics. So rajin one buat kerja, kalau angkat kayu pun yang paling besar, kalau panjat pokok yang paling tinggi and all trying to prove that we are MAN. Especially kalau our female relatives pass by…LOL
At night soon you’ll discover which of your female cousins that really can cook and do some of the creative works preparing the pelamin and other decorative things. Childish it may seem but you can see male cousins tripping at one another to win certain hearts. The best of all, for me at least, a wedding is also the time when most ‘kampung’ beauties came out. Not once or twice I wondered where they have been hiding all the while. When I was 15 – 20 years old wedding in my kampong is something that I really looked forward too. Two reasons – Babe and Gulai Umbut Kelapa …LOL
A wedding also brings together long lost friends and the sight they were crying at seeing one another was great. Great for humanity and great to laugh at, I mean to laugh in a good way….laa! Nowadays, a wedding could be a business to certain people or business-like, especially weddings in the city, with not much feeling and emotion to go around. Also, weddings, no matter how far it is now, are accessible to most Malaysians. I mean I have been to weddings in KK, Melaka, Pahang and Ipoh in a single journey without breaking a sweat. In the old days when travelling from KL to Klang took one full day you have to really plan your wedding travels. On the part of those planning for weddings they really have to choose the right time, normally the long school holiday at the end of the year, and you can never have two weddings in a week. If not we have to go to tribal council to sort this out. If the bride or bridegroom happens to be from another state, well simply, you’ll have a preparation like the whole clan is going to Mekah. No kidding!!!! Well at least from where I came from anyway.
I have three invitations last weekend; two, Seremban and Melaka, on Saturday and one, Bangi, on Sunday. The one in Seremban came late and I said would try to attend provided I could do it on the way to Melaka. So, that Saturday morning we woke up early and departed from the house at 8 am. As usual, we stopped for breakfast first and proceeded to the Plus Highway. When we got to the highway the traffic was already quite heavy but I didn’t suspect anything worse and we drove down south. I zigzagged the truck down south and made a turn when we reached the Seri Putera/Bukit Mahkota interchange as we have planned to stop at our new house to check on the repairs that the developer was doing. The house was 70% repaired but there still works to be done before we could move in. The contractor promised me a week. At 11 am we reentered the highway and the traffic was getting worse, still I could zigzag through. However, we were confronted with our biggest fear when we got to Nilai. The three-lane highway was a crawl and my guess was until Seremban. I was right of course and we only managed to pass Senawang at 1 pm and it was too late to stop at Senawang for our first invitation. I floored the accelerator and sped our way towards Melaka.
After so many trips to Melaka, I was quite familiar with the direction to Zaza’s place and headed towards Umbai as soon as we passed ‘ Samy Velu’s’ Collection Center at Air Keroh (It was RM11.70 from Seri Putera). I tried to speed through the traffic full of holidaymakers packing the Air Keroh resorts, entertainment and visitation area. I did this not trying to be another Schumacher but because of the heat that proved to be a little bit too hot for my little Mardhiyah. We reached Zaza’s Kampong in no time and in fact, my son and daughter commented that they saw a wedding indicator that said Zarina’s wedding. I said let us pass on a bit further up to make sure. As indicated in Zaza’s plan we came to Kg Pulai’s masjid and right in between the masjid and the pusat kesihatan was a wedding celebration going on full steam. For some reasons, I could not remember Zaza’s full name and I said to my children Zaza’s name was Zainab Abd Rahman and it could not be the house at it says Zarina Abd Rahman. Of course, for once I was wrong so much so my children and my wife made a celebration out of it…LOL. Anyway, once I parked our truck in front of the masjid Nazri came to say salam. He and Huda, in fact, had just arrived themselves and stationed themselves in the masjid waiting for someone that supposes to be there earlier. (I tak nak sebut nama nanti dia marah I). Since Zaza’s place is crowded with people due to the just arrived pengantin lelaki we decided to join Nazri and Huda in the masjid to cool off. We only walked to the house after about 15 minutes of waiting. Nazri and Huda, being a true friend, decided to wait for ‘the friend’ before walking over. Zaza and her new hubby were at the main table eating, not really, more like smiling and with ‘am I suppose to do this or look like this’ look on their faces. Actually, my wife was the first to acknowledge the location of the newlywed and when I looked up to look;
Zaza was smiling and waving at me. Not wanting to disturb Zaza we sat down at a table to be served. While waiting for the food Zaza further acknowledged my presence by sending a ‘messenger’ over to present me with special ‘momento’. She, the messenger, actually asked me first whether I was Zaza’s lecturer and I said I was. Frankly speaking, the greatest recognition that anybody could give me is when they called me ‘lecturer’ or ‘teacher’. I felt honoured with that recognition. Even though I spent only about three months with you guys sharing what I know you still call me that and I am touched. I hope back then I could spend more time with all of you and I did get to share even more with those that have taken KM in their Master's programme. When we finished eating we walked into the house to meet the pengantin to say goodbye and both of them were busy sitting on the pelamin taking photographs with other guests. There they were smiling looking so grand in their light blue attire ‘mengerlip-ngerlip, nasib baik tak light and easy, at the pelamin. Our turn finally came and we placed our selves and our best smiles to be captured as Zaza’ wedding photos collection. We wished them all the best and walked out of the house towards the masjid to Jama’ our prayers. Kesian kat Nazri and Huda, they were still there waiting and in fact were still waiting when we left the masjid for home. BTW, I met Maz and her ‘tunang’ at the masjid and she gave me her premature wedding invitation which would be at the end of the year in Butterworth. InshaAllah!I knew I was a bit tired even before we drove down to Melaka and the situation was made worse by traffic jam waiting for us on the main road. As we suspected it was due to an overturned lorry just before Pernu’s Ikan Bakar’s junction. We saw the carnage when we drove through to Zaza’s place. We were a bit lucky we were on the other side of the road as there was a longer queue for traffic coming from Melaka. My first remark was ‘kesian Nazri and Huda kena tunggu lama lagi la’ as I was very sure the friend that they were waiting for must be stuck in that queue. As for us, I made a detour at Sg Duyong for my children to visit Perigi Hang Tuah and for me to sleep…LOL.
We finally arrived home at 11 pm, 11pm! You may ask. Well, if you know me, while I am travelling I like to take full advantage of it and detour here and it is quite common. However, I am afraid they would be too boring to share with you all here
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