Raya

Raya in london has lost it's luster.

Living away from the Malaysians has made the celebrations less festive, less kepoh, much less exciting. Raya never meant much to me personally anyway. It was always about other people- inviting people to open house, visiting people's open houses, watching god-awful reruns of maria mariana or tragedi october and the really depressing raya songs (or the very ceria ones i could never connect to).

raya when i was a kid was always about work- i had to peel onions and shallots till my hands reeked of them. The smell of shallots on my hands brings me back to my childhood of sitting on the kitchen floor with the basin full of onions, wondering if i'll ever manage to peel them all. There was the time mom used to make serunding- even dad got roped in to help shred the chunks of beef into fine floss.

baju raya was always something to celebrate, although i always thought i didnt look as pretty as the other girls. But then it wouldnt matter much because i'll be stuck in the kitchen for the most part- serving drinks and doing dishes. Last wednesday at my aunt's place, i had such a sense of nostalgia washing dishes in my baju kurung. It was a flash back to 10 years ago, when i'd be doing the exact same thing at home.

I hated raya because of the work. I couldn't appreciate seeing family, sitting down to eat the 6th bowl of nasi impit and kuah kacang of the day. In the end, it's about people. Seeing and chatting with people i sometimes meet only once a year. It's really sad that some of my favorite older relatives have passed away and most of my memories of them was of when i was a child.

Celebrations this year fell flat- i got the day of raya wrong, so i spent the day on firms, super-busy. The next day started out awful and i got caught up in a designer shopping spree, feeling terribly out of place. Dinner at aunt's later made everything better- it felt homey.

My old housemates (the Malaysians) did a raya bash on friday- i was invited as a guest and was told to just come by, to not bother making anything. As if living away wasnt bad enough, now they were treating me like an outsider, a guest. It stung a little- i enjoyed the big raya parties we use to hold every year (i whinged about it, but actually, i really enjoyed the insanity of a big massive cookout). I came in work clothes, looking a bit worse for wear when lo behold, the former man i was obsessed with was there. This year i managed to actually salam him and say 'selamat hari raya'. I know im no longer obsessed because i would have frozen and then swooned if this happened 2 years ago.

The MSD party today was alright. I feel so old- lots of my old friends are no longer around, they've all graduated and moved on. There was the odd person i knew and people i recognized, but somehow, it's just not festive. One of my company today was decidedly uncomfortable and unhappy (except the bowl of lodeh made his day), but he's never that happy when he's with me anyway, so i told myself to not take it to heart. Food was very good though and i wolfed down a fair bit. I didnt even take that many photos- didnt feel too pretty today.

So that's the end of my raya whine. I will have a raya do, probably in 2 weeks time before i leave for the coast. Lots of people want check out the new place and there are people that i haven't seen yet. It'll be a mission, cooking all that by myself, but hey, i always survive and still throw a decent party.