Holy Express

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Two minutes forty-five seconds, that was how long the khutbah Jumaat lasted last week. The previous week was two minutes and fifty-three seconds.

We tried out a new masjid nearer to the office over the last month or so, just for a change. The khutbahs at the old masjid were short, but not that short. When we started at this new masjid, we thought it was kinda short. Really short.

Tapi khutbah dia cukup syarat2 dialah. Ada ayat suci al-Quran, ada semua adalah, he he he…. Amende semua tu gua pun lupa dah, tu masa belajar sekolah menengah kut. That was a long time ago, when T-Rex was roaming the plains.

I remember thinking that the khutbahs are a bit short when we first went there. I timed it last week and true enough, it was as I said, two minutes and forty five seconds….. pendek tu…. Yusz told me he timed it the previous week and it was only eight seconds longer.

Musa, one of the guys who reported for duty a few days before we went to the new masjid thought that they were telling us to shut our traps and listen while the khatib is delivering the khutbah, you know, the usual when they said something like “Janganlah kamu berkata-kata semasa khatib sedang membaca khutbah etc. etc. etc…….. maka sia-sia pahala Jumaat kamu.“

“Eh, dah abis dah? Eh, dah sembahyang dah ke? Aku ingat dia suruh kita diam masa khatib baca khutbah tadi. Dah sembahyang ke?”, he went.

“Wei dah start lah, orang nak rukuk dah tu…”

Someone told me dia orang sini Mazhab Hanbali. OK lah tu. Janji gi solat Jumaat kan?

Kalau back home, kalau imam tengah baca khutbah boleh jalan macam itik pulang petang lagi. Kalau sini, imam baca khutbah, get your ass into the masjid as soon as possible because you have about two minutes to do so!!!!

Been hard updating this blog. Can’t access it most of the time here.

Well, at least I found a new drug.

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Starry Starry Night Too

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I am into that song by Don McLean now. I rediscovered it recently and I usually listen to it just before I go to bed. I'd be lying in the dark or staring out the window, looking at the lights of the town.

I have always been slow in knowing the latest hits. Sofia, on the other hand, is usually very very up to date on thelatest songs or trends, especially for teenagers like her. Me, a song would have entered the charts, made it up to number one, stay there for a while, worked its way down, gets booted out of the charts and I'd probably "discover" it two years later. And in the process I'd managed to miss out on 90% on the other good songs.

I bought myself a docking station for my iPod recently and now, while I cook, eat, do the laundry or just putter around the house, the air would be filled with Malay, English, Hindi, Japanese or Russian songs. Seventy-four songs under "Favourites".

Went to another local wedding recently. As usual, my boss was not around and I had to give the usual speech for the office crowd that showed up. It goes like this - someone, there's always someone with a microphone, and he'd start to jabber things that I could not understand and soon they'd get to the name of the company and my name and all of us would have to stand up in front of the love birds and I'd have to say something to wish them happy long wealthy healthy life with many children etc etc etc. I think I am beginning to be good at this stuff. I'd just include our "bahagia ke anak cucu" stuff, some don't shout at each other unless the house is on fire stuff and more happiness is each other stuff etc. Etc etc. Etc etc etc etc.

This year, in November, it would be twenty years since I married Lina. Twenty years. Twenty years. I'll take another two of those please.

An afterthought.... me below outside the house in Copenhagen that Hans Christian Andersen used to stay in. Uummmhhhh... I smell gingerbread biscuits...



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