so-shy-tea

This story is about a society which (according to them; the members) instills ukhwah among the members, and concerns about the well-being among themselves. One day, a member of the society called me to join him goes shopping.

‘What for?’ I asked.

‘It’s for the family day. We’re going to hold a family day this Sunday.’

So, I went with him. He (which means we) shopped a lot of stuffs.

‘What are these for?’ As an avid questioner, I asked him.

‘These are for the prizes that we’re going to have during the family day.’ He replied. ‘We are going to make up 6 hampers with these.’

‘What for?’ I asked, again.

‘Without prizes, there will be not many people coming.’

Considering the price we were paying for the items, which amounting more than rm100, I asked him again. ‘How much a participant pays?’

‘Null. The program is free of charge. If the comers are asked to pay, no one will come.’

I was so puzzled I wanted to puke! I was babbling all the way to the hostel.
He said, ‘don’t blame it on me. I was asked to buy these.’

Still I have this awkward feeling inside.

First, the hard earned money (from the economic bureau; they sell kerepek and cikedis) was spent on something so ridiculous! Balloons and flour (for cari gula dalam tepung perhaps, I don’t know) for the sake of little enjoyment that you paste the name ukhwah on it? Like the Christian teacher said, ‘you like to waste ah. Why don’t you donate the money to your Palestinians or Lebanese brothers? Or to the mosque? Or to the orphanage? You spent your money on this kind of stuff, and you make noise, a hell lot of loud noise when we enlarge our church in upm. You people really are nonsense’. I can’t disagree more. (There was a story behind this cynical advice of the Christian teacher)

Second, what ukhwah are you talking about when you don’t even want to come when you know that you are going to pay, or there will be no prize for the games. How much have you instill the ukhwah between the members?

I like it when the emir said,’ petang ni buka sesame.’ And on that maghrib, most of us will make it there even though we know that we are going to pay more for the food, compared to if we buka sorang-sorang.
This writing was based on my personal view. With this, I rest my case.

p/s: ‘those people who are yelling for ukhwah, for brotherhood, I have never seen them, except for jumaat prayer, praying jamaah in this masjid.” – bin Abdullah.