#faredoeswrite

I would say that I’m jealous whenever I observe my friends’ strong family bond. I even find it weird when I hear things like,I’m homesick la bro, bro I’m going back home this weekend la because my family is going to have a family dinner, rindu la nak tido kat katil sendiri. I simply don’t have those in me.

Recently I went home. As I walked into the house, the first thing I saw was a Carom Board on the coffee table. I kept looking at the thing as I walked by and wondered whose Carom board was that. No one in our family history has ever played Carom.

Dinner was all ready that night when Mak summoned us to the dining hall. As usual, she never managed to get everybody sit and dine together at the table. Some of us will have their dinner on the couch watching television and some just wait for us to finish our food first.

Right after I finished eating, one of my sisters called me and said “why don’t you join us and play Carom?” I told them that I never played Carom. “Alah main je la, jentik je” So there we were playing Carom with our fingers snowed by wheat flour used to make smooth the board’s surface.

As we sank in laughter while playing, Mak was actually sitting nearby watching us. She was smiling as if she was playing too. When I noticed her, I spontaneously asked her who bought the Carom board. She answered:

“Mak la beli, korang kan selalu komplen tak suka balik rumah, boring la takde ape nak buat la”

That single sentence put me in a very deep thought. Parents actually treasure our presence at home. They had spent their younger years raising us and perhaps why they did not seem to treasure it back then is because we had always been there. Now since we have grown up and left the house, they simply want us to come back home.

It was just another day in Uitm Shah Alam when I fed my room mates with lasagna which I cooked during cooking class. Unexpectedly, one of my room mates waived at a dude calling him to come to our window.  I was unsure if the half-eaten lasagna was enough for this big dude. Reluctantly I offered my portion to him and he was so happy and liked it so much.

He was a vey pleasant guy to talk to, so both of us ended up chatting for hours. I forgot where did my room mates go as we were chatting. For some reasons, I felt we shared the same wavelength and there was good chemistry between us. We engaged in intellectual conversations, sharing and agreeing to the same thoughts, we laughed at each other’s jokes, I admired his command of English and pronunciation. We clicked in almost everything we talked about.

Since that day, we had grown so close to each other. We always talked to each other after classes and shared stories. I talked about cakes and recipes and he talked about laws and regulations. Admiring his eloquence, I told him that I was interested in doing law. Ha-ha I would laugh at myself recalling this now. He had encouraged me to pursue law if I had passion in it. Thus, there he was, a young man with a strong urge to become a lawyer. Farewell to French knife and apron.

Through the years, our friendship was built by the uncertainties and insecurities of two young men from different upbringing (He’s an uptown boy and I’m a kampong boy). I listened, admired and took examples of his life stories and so did he. We felt each other’s fear about future. We realized it was not easy to be one person and we appreciated the difference. We were there for each other when our insecurities struck (he was most of the time than I was). Some of his insecurities were just too silly;

“Bro, aku gemok la, takkan ade orang nak aku punye lah, I’m pretty sure that I will never have the chance to love and being loved by someone.” He used to cling to this ridiculous principle of his; LOVE SIMPLY RUNS AWAY FROM ME “Okay ko memang gemok tapi don’t worry I strongly believe god saves someone special for you”.

My insecurity was the worst of all;

“Fairudz, I don’t feel belong to the group la but I want to, I think they don’t like me because I’m a short dude la” “No la bro brush up on your PR lah!”

I am glad to say that he had never, not even once failed to be there for me when I was facing my hard times; family problems, breakups, examinations and let alone financial problems. He was the one who listened to my woeful stories again and again as if it was the first time I told him. Had I fail to digest an advice, he would rephrase it all over again without giving up. 

Never in my life had I really thought about getting a best friend.

A best friend is someone who truly cares for you as if he’s taking care of himself;

a best friend is someone who will always walk with you;

a best friend is someone who will make fun of your driving skills;

a best friend is someone like Mohammed Fairudz Bin Hanif.  

Anonymous asked: sent my regards to your creep brother....

Done :)

We have grown so close to each other since our childhood. We eat, fight, laugh and play together. I was unhappy if he wasn’t, I will fight back if he was bullied and upset whenever his desire was not fulfilled, and in fact I’ll protest to it. I always listened to him too, surprisingly whatever he wished for was also my wish and it made both of us happy and satisfied.

We are like the best of friends and the friendship seems to go unnoticed by the people. There was one time when my parents wanted to enroll me to a tahfiz school situated in a remote district. A school that teaches its students to recite the Quran on a daily basis, they will graduate as soon as they manage to memorize every single verse of the Holy Book. Despite my protest to my parents, I was persuaded to go and he had to go too. Both of us were not going against the idea of memorizing the Quran but we thought of going after our ambitions since we were doing well in school after all. He told me that, if we choose not to enroll ourselves in that school, it does not mean that we are not good Muslims which I totally agreed with him. It was just that we wanted to do something else in life but at the same time we would want to become good Muslims.

My parents’ art of persuasion was quite good, Ayah told me “banyak kelebihan jadi Tahfiz Al-Quran ni, kat akhirat nanti kita dapat pilih 40 orang di kalangan ahli keluarga kita untuk masuk syurga”. However, my art of sarcasm was also budding at that time when I said in reply “So, ayah nak saye blaja tahfiz ni sebab ayah boleh masuk syurga? And what makes you think that I’d choose you?” I did not mean to be a bratbut I really did not want to go to that school. Emak, on the other hand said she was not saying that going to the mainstream school is not good but it is better if I take a first step to His liking, because He has promised that he will be pouring his blessings onto those willing to set aside the worldly pleasure for him. I had no objection to that but I believed that there are many other ways too.

Me: Ayah, can I just put on my casual shirt instead of this jubah? Or at least my baju melayu with kopiah? I don’t see the point of wearing this.

Ayah: This is how the students will be wearing soon.

Me: Oh right.. Maybe I should wear serban too. And maybe I should start keeping beard first then only we go?

So we went. The name of that kampong is Kampong Berhala Gantang and the name of the school was also the same. Maahad Tahfiz Berhala Gantang. I thought berhala (Idol) was not a good name for such a school. They tested us on our ability to recite Al-Quran. We both passed it. My father was so happy that he wanted to buy us more jubahs.

I had an argument with my parents later in the night because I decided not to go. He also decided not to. Despite the repetitive arguments and much persuasion by my parents, still we did not want to go. I chose to follow him because I believed in him. My parents eventually gave up and we ended up not in speaking term for a couple of days. 

Today, I am a professional graduate. I’ve proven myself to my parents and they seem proud of it. I still remember, ayah said, in the midst of the holy arguments that night, “kalau tak nak sangat takpe lah, Cuma ingat Allah bagi peluang masa depan kali ni tapi awak lepaskan” Well for all these years, I’ve always been blessed with good opportunities for a bright future. What about him? He never left. He has always been there with me, through my hard times (break ups, sleepless nights of examination week, etc) and my good times of course. He is my biggest enemy and true bestfriend. Whenever I look at the mirror, I see him. 

~Believe in that someone in you. Because he or she knows you like no one else. 

We are vulnerable beings. You, me, a school counselor, a psychologist, a makcik who sells kerepek from table to table, you name it. Yes we all are.  We might think that some people are strong enough to go through whatever, but probably they are just not.  

Its either have I seen it myself or have I read about it, most people have had their ups and downs in life. I used to think that Emak is such a strong woman. I said so because I got a strong slap across my face for cutting the aquarium fish into half. She thought I need a psychiatrist help but I was just helping my sisters with their “main masak masak” game. They were thinking to have fish for lunch. Back in our childhood, Emak has this subtle look making it difficult to tell whether she was in good mood or not. Thus, whenever we were not so happy with her, we called her “Gunung Berapi” because even the gunung did not erupt, it looked scary and likely to erupt in anytime.

When we had the biggest conflict (so far) in our family, Emak finally revealed the vulnerable side of her. She broke down in devastation to find out about certain devastating facts. I can still recall it when she said “Go away, don’t sit next to me, I thought I’ve done enough as a mother but I have failed” Where was I then? I was scared so I locked myself up in my room, rooted to the ground. By the way don’t get it wrong because it was not me my mother was referring to (I’m still a good son in her eyes), but someone else. She continued to cry even badly in the shower room and even she tried to cloak her weep by the noise of the showering water, I could hear it still.

There are times when time gets rough and we will find ourselves alone on this planet. Sometimes things do get complicated and we don’t even know what it is. It is just a mixture of problems which make up to another problem which then give rise to an unpleasant feeling. A problem we don’t think our family and good friends can do much about because we don’t know how to dismantle it. There you are… you and yourself. Some cry, some throw things, some speed up their cars, some get themselves drunk, and some just try to pretend that everything is okay.

Many would say, this is when self-motivation is important, yes no doubt it is, but little that they know there is a sense of denial in every each of “come on I can do this, I am fine” when you are not actually that fine. Or “It doesn’t matter, small things like this will not make me sad” when you are already sad. By the end of the day it is not successfully settled and we are not completely fine or happy, but we just deal with it and live the next day. 

It’s amazing to see how people live their everyday life with smiles on their face, when the truth is they are broken inside. Every single of them would go back home, switch off the lights, think about it as they hit the pillows, and sleep over it. That’s just what it takes to continue living on this earth. Today, we are still doing whatever we need to do and we can still see people around us moving on with their everyday lives including makcik jual kerepek selling her kerepek in restaurants. Do we know of their misery? Do they know of our misery? None of us do. Perhaps we could help each other by making each other happy for it is the least we can do. Just let the never ending problems to come, all we need to do is just survive.