Eid '08

Eid 2008 was not unlike the years before. Except for a few changes;

Regretfully, it seems that I no longer 'qualify' to receive Duit Raya, though I legitimately satisfy the following rule:

Eligible Duit Raya Receipient

* Below 21 years old

* Unoccupied/Haven't paid Income tax yet

* Unmarried

Anyway, apart from a few gathering here and there, Eid is as how it was, and will be..to me;

My family has officially discontinued the baju melayu tradition. Since last year, we have made the trendy & stylish silver-embroidered black dress shirt our official 1st Day of Raya dress for the guys in my family, bought all the way from Jakarta.

Dad took a (paid) one-month leave throughout September/Ramadhan, and a little over October/Syawal. Yesterday, we had sent him off at KLIA, and mom & sis won't be joining dad in Qatar anymore.

Family gatherings, and a few open houses here and there - that's Raya to me. My kampung is 20-minutes drive away from my house, and it's in a suburb of Seremban called Ampangan. Since grandma's house is a bungalow, I'm not quite able to picture the cliché wooden-house-on-stilts-rural-village imagery of Raya we're all being fed to. Not that it bothers me coz this is my Raya, and I prefer my Raya the way it is - the way I have lived through, and the way I like it. Kinda like Burger King's slogan, "Have It Your Way".

On that note, I'll wish you all a blessed Eid to be celebrated your way.