Janda Baik, The District of Virtuous Widows and Divorcees - a short road trip

Good morning, sunshine. Alas,  no sunshine here this morning as an overcast sky hides the Sun and its life-giving light. It has been raining here for weeks on end, and I cannot now recall a day when it didn't rain. And we are not getting the mild cozy sort of morning drizzle nowadays, but a series of evening rainstorms that is lively enough to cause landslides and uproot trees. Not to mention making potholes all along the affected roads. More work for the municipal councils, I guess.

But yesterday I managed to visit the small hillside district of Janda Baik (literally meaning Virtuous Widows / Divorcees). I guess this is my fav spot to run away from the urban rat race, and even though we were there only for a couple of hours, it certainly did my spirit a whole lot of wonderful. It was the rivers, the trees, the flowers and the food that did it for me. In the company of Heche and friends (none of them being widows or divorcees nor too virtuous. He he he) , we made our way to the small villages and took some pictures. I hope you like them...

5. The Eye III

I shall never be ready

For Thee, o’ Lord!

I shall be caught in Thy clutches

Like a deer surprised in the forest,

Like a fish

Entangled in the net,

Like a bride seeing her groom for the first time,

And gasping shyly, “Oh, Lord!”

Forever regretting she had ever

Questioned the match!

.................................................

The union between the Lover (aka Allah) and the loved (aka you) is a union without any fear or risk of separation. No widows, widowers or divorcees in the spiritual union will add to the (sadly) long list of divorces and separations of the wholly mortal nature. For once God has entered your life, there is no more separation, and the only uncertainty lies wholly in the limitations of our ilmu (knowledge) and adab (good manners) towards our Maker... 

Have a lovely day, sunshine. And a good beginning of your working week.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

A Distant Thunder and a Little Teasing - Sunday rainy thoughts...

52. Distant thunder

I hear the rumblings of a distant thunder

Light is veiled behind a plume of cloud.

But rain is come

The seeker is now the sought

The lover is now the loved

Woe that I was ever in doubt!

 118. Teasing

What is love without a little teasing,

A little sorrow, a little pain,

A little drought before the rain,

A little sting, a little bleeding,

A little snowfall before spring.

................................

It is rainy weather here, the end of the year monsoon season. It comes to my country regular as clockwork. Fishermen avoid going to sea these days. The sea is just too rough and unpredictable.

For city-rats like myself, there is no such foreboding doom. Our only pain is the little inconvenience of waiting out the rain. But rain makes good company for prose-writing. The two prose above are actually from my old collection of the DamSunSunAna... written around mid 2004. It rained hard in my heart that year.

Thank you for coming by today. How was Sunday for you?

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Angels Making Rain, The Return of the Haze and Super Dads

Making Rain

The Angels of God on their heavenly steed,

Stomped and stomped upon the clouds,

Galloping across the sky,

From one horizon

To the other...

Until finally the clouds broke,

The thunder rumbled

And the rain fell.

..............

Morning Rain. It rained earlier this morning. After one week of no rain and return of the Sumatran haze to my country, it was a sweet but alas, short relief. The rain cleared the haze a little, although it is still there outside, a blurry pall hanging in the air and Man's heart.

Haze. Kuala Lumpur, in which the sinner makes his home has the intrinsic geographical condition as a natural catchment of water and air (and haze). Today however the worst affected area is in Kuala Selangor and Port Klang, at the west coast of Malaysia and nearest to the source of the haze in the island of Sumatra across the Straits of Melaka.

It was really bad a couple of days ago. Today however the API (air pollutant index)
is gradually falling and only a few spots in peninsular Malaysia are the API unhealthy.
You can check the daily API at www.doe.gov.my

Father's Day. Well, I am told that it is my day today, Father's Day. Mikhail called me early in the morning and wished me to have a good one. He says he is sorry because the day came to him as a surprise, and he has not bought me anything. Hehehe.

On behalf of all fathers, I must say I am touched by the idea of our own 'global' day to celebrate our awesomeness and natural good looks. But we are alright without it. When people come up to us and say happy father's day, we don't know how to react sometimes. We don't know where to turn and what words to say in reply. Because, I don't know about the rest of the dads on earth, but I always feel inadequate to my purpose as a father. Just as how Adam perhaps felt when he first heard Eve nonchalantly saying to him, all those many eons ago... "Guess what? I think I have got a bun in the oven! You are gonna be a father..." And never being able to live up to the expectations of our children, who in the beginning, will think us Superman, but later will find out that their dear old dad is just that... dear old dad. Not Superman, not Iron Man.

But never mind... because you can still call us Super Dad.

Hehehe.

God bless you, and Happy Father's day!

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way.

Why the Rain is So Distressingly Lovely to Me

Morning Rain

Rain, rain, rain

Falling on you and me,

Rain, rain, rain

Puddles by the roadside,

Rain, rain, rain

What was it that made me see?

Where once my world did shine no light?

Rain, rain, rain

Keeps her secret all to herself,

Rain, rain, rain

Makes me pick a book right off the shelf,

Rain, rain, rain

To mind myself with gentle thoughts

Of life and love, of hope and God.

……………………

Unless you are caught without an umbrella, and unless you just washed your car, is there anything as lovely as an early morning drizzle? I am a rainy person. Some people are sunny ones who love to bake themselves under the sun. But me? It is the rain that makes me happy and the weather that is naturally for me. I don't know why really. I guess we are made the way we are made, and that's all.

It is actually 5.30am now. But my mind is wide awake. I will not sleep while I can still enjoy the tinkling, sprinkling, ding-a-ling sounds of raindrops outside my window. For soon enough the rain will stop, and the Sun, mighty and glorious will shine its crude and rude light into every corner of my soul.

If I am caught in the rain, I would bare my shoulder for a while - a brief illicit intimacy that I savour, between the rain, me and our Maker. For I recall that he did that, the Prophet Muhammad of Mecca, the Prince of Mercy. Perhaps that is why the rain is so distressingly lovely to me.

It is a whimsical Monday, sunshine. God bless you!

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way