Untitled #4

Like any other year since the past three years, this year, you will be celebrating Aidilfitri in class.

A 55-minute lecture at eight in the morning, right on the dot, and with the company of countless other Americans, unbeknownst to them what a glorious day it is that day, the Aidilfitri, for the Moslems here with them at the University and for the Moslems out there worldwide. The professor would go on and on with whatever it is that he is talking about, and the time would crawl like a pregnant snail, one small twitch of the muscle at the time. He would tell a joke now and then, about how when he worked for Dow Chemical as a young field engineer and how he learned the hard way not to get into a heated discussion with the people in the R&D department, namely the chemists, for it would only result in both of you not understanding each other: the chemists with their crazy bench-scale talk and the engineers with their operational heuristic bullshit. The class would erupt into a guffaw, with the professor leading the chorus.

The typical Chemical Engineering joke.

You would try to concentrate on what is happening around you but your mind would just fail to be there.

In the anonymity of being present in a very large classroom, you would reminisce of how things are now different that you are far away from the comfort of home and family, of how you used to take for granted the small, silly things that you miss dearly: like distant cousins visiting your small house in a van or two and bringing with them their small army of annoying little brothers and sisters, and like eating too much ketupat and rendang when going from one neighbor's house to another and coming back home with a severe case diarrhea that will leave you forced to being the reluctant host to unfamiliar guests coming to your house, and like having to balik kampung to atuk's house for a week where the nyamuks run amuck.

The same moment your head wonders into how the celebration is building up at home, the teaching assistants would start distributing next week's big assignment, and the same moment you imagine the delight of being able to eat various festive foods during the Aidilfitri morning, the big fat girl sitting next to you munches down a big fat jelly donut, a meal between breakfast and brunch that she had probably discovered through extensive research perhaps, much to the audible disgust of you and those near her.

The feeling of such used to be unbearably sad and depressing, especially during the first time, but by the time you get into the third year and the workload it seems would never stop piling up, you are too knee-deep into the routine to feel the slightest pain of sadness anymore, moreover to complain about anything.

So, you would just sit there, numb and mindless.

And the professor lashes onto you another joke, just so to remind you that you are still at his mercy.


Untitled #5

The morning of Syawal the First, you woke up late for a lecture at eight, because the night before, you and your roommates were busy staying up preparing the house for Aidilfitri: cleaning, cooking and doing the laundry. With Raya songs blasting through from the computer speakers in the background, it hardly seemed that time was slowly passing by as you and they toiled to achieve the perfect Raya celebration.

As you waited for your roommate to be done using the bathroom, it dawned upon you that it is you alone who would not be able to go to solat raya at the City Center that morning and that it is you alone who would spend the bulk of the day behind either a desk taking notes from a lecture or a laboratory bench experimenting with an ion exchange column -- both of which you find inescapable options you loathe.

Then, as the others got to dress up to brace the cold, white Syawal morning in their lovely shirts and pants, you weighed onto the back of your body the weight of the day: textbooks, files, and notebooks.

But still, you had Hope to hold on to: the rendang daging that you and they managed to cook last night.

"Be strong", you say to yourself,
"...there will be the rendang at the end."

With the snow falling across your face, and the cold wind that provides it, you walk to school, alone.

Once you have entered the school grounds, the day clicks into gear, in the usual automated manner that has never failed to break down: classes start and endure and then end, moving from one time slot and to another, a short lunch break (when, instead of rushing to grab a bite that will last until the end of the day, you rush to find a secluded spot where your Zuhur will not be disturbed by curious, suspicious American onlookers), laboratory sessions that last for hours and sometimes need to be repeated, and design group meetings that never seem to have a sense of purpose or direction.

Then finally, comes the day's ending.

As you tread through the day's worth of thick snow, you can't help but feel that you've earned the day. That it should be befitting that you now rest, wash up after yourself and enjoy whatever was left of Eid. That it should be just that you now dedicate whatever was left of Eid to the Eid itself, and your personal celebration of it. That it should be like the Prophet said, that when Eid comes to those who have fasted, they, alone, must celebrate it. That it should be fair for you now to do nothing else but to celebrate Eid, especially after having to sacrifice the bulk of the Eid itself to something as honorable as your classes.

"From the start and to the end", you say,
"...all I can think of is the rendang."

But then, when you arrived home: there was none of it left. None of the rendang was left, not by a pinch, not by a spoon, and certainly not by any of your beloved roommates. All of the rendang daging -- gone.

And there they were, the roommates, sleeping on the carpet in front of the TV, after having exhausted themselves to the open house orgy of fellow juniors and fellow freshmen, with their Raya clothes still in the pristine pure spirit of the festivities: what great celebration it was for them, and what great freedom it was for them to celebrate it, and what great roommates they would make in such a binge of selfishness.

For Aidilfitri, late at night, the only option left was McDonald's fish burger and French fries for US$3.86.

The words:
Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir Batin.
By now, they no longer have any meaning to you.