-HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI SERIES-
GREAT SONGS MAKE FOR A DELIGHTFUL HARI RAYA AIDIL FITRI

On the second day of the recent Hari Raya Aidil Fitri celebrations, I found myself alone in Tok Boh’s house in Kuantan, Pahang, when the other family members went visiting the neighbors.

We were all supposed to go to the surrounding houses, but I decided not to, since I was rather tired and my tummy was already filled to the brim after the morning rounds. I mentioned I’ll go round the next day, however.

Making myself cosy on the long sofa, I had the radio switched on, after already been bored with watching television. My head was also soon to be sailing away, really tired. I was looking forward to the ZZZ, zzz's, to refresh myself again.

I remember such activities weren’t that tiring before. But these days tiredness and my body seems to be close friends.

But before my mind could sail away, before the ZZZ, zzz’s overtook me, there were all these Raya songs on the radio, one after another. For no reason, feeling excited by the songs, I got up and started singing and humming the songs I knew.

Well, on the air were the evergreen songs of Aidil Fitri by Tan Sri P.Ramlee, Saloma, Sudirman, Fazidah Joned, Ahmad Jais, Aman Shah, Aishah, M. Nasir, S. Jibeng, Sharifah Aini, and others.

Come to think of it, there really are many Aidil Fitri songs now, although my favorite ones count to only about ten. During my childhood days, I remember there were only the songs by Saloma, P.Ramlee and Fazidah Joned.

To me, the "newer" songs sung by Ahmad Jais, Sudirman, M.Nasir, Aman Shah, Aishah, Sharifah Aini, Rafeah Buang, plus those old "classic" Raya songs, are really the sounds of Hari Raya – evergreen songs that to me will never ever cease to be played on the air-waves over and over again come every Hari Raya Aidl Fitri.

Songs, I dare say, that will never cease unless Hari Raya Aidil Fitri is no more celebrated, and unless those songs also happen to be erased in our minds and from our memories forever. Maybe that will happen later when we get older and our minds and memories start to dysfunction and fade.

I enjoyed listening to the radio that day – the local Kuantan FM, (or is it called Pahang FM?). The songs played were quite a mixture of songs of joy and laughter, happiness, sadness and melancholy.

And they got my mind clicking back on my stored memories of yesteryears.

I remember the first year I started working, I stayed in a terrace house at Taman Gelora in Kuantan with two other bachelor housemates. Jaaffar Latif, from Batu Pahat, Johore was an officer with MIDA, and the other, Mahussin Deris, who hails from Kelantan, a DARA officer. And I was with the Pahang State Development Corporation then.

We were all in fact rookies working in Kuantan, having just graduated, and we all had just obtained our driving licences and bought our own cars.

Well, I still remember that first year of Hari Raya in 1979 because my friend, Mahussin Deris, had made up his mind, although tinge with sadness, not to go back home for the Raya. If I remember correctly, I think he said that it’s not worth the long distance travel back home with only two days of official holidays. His application for additional leaves from the boss was not granted.

Although he sounded really adamant to celebrate Raya in Kuantan at that time, in the end he actually went back home to celebrate.

Well, I was greatly surprised when he told me so after we all came back from Raya, since before Jaaffar and I left Kuantan in the morning of the eve of Raya, it was quite settled that he would be okay alone and will celebrate the Raya with his office friends living in Kuantan.

Relating his change of mind, he said that while alone in his room, listening to the radio, the song "Dendang Perantau" by the late Tan Sri P. Ramlee came on the air. That song really moved him and, rather inexplicably, pangs of nostalgia and homesickness overcame him.

The longing to be home with his mum and siblings was so strong that somehow he gathered courage and immediately packed his bags and drove the more than 6-hours journey that same night. Driving back at a little before midnight, he made it home in the early morning.

Well, even in the early 1980’s there were no highways in the east coast and the roads then were not so good. Driving at night 500 kilometers away to Kelantan was really not advisable, especially for a lone rookie driver with a new car, and with the roads during those days mostly dark and sparsely lighted.

But such is the power of a great Hari Raya song. It can move feelings.

No doubt, every Raya song has some rather nostalgic memory, some unexplained and unique sentimental feeling, to some people.

Sometimes whatever we try to do, the song will bring back memories, recalling some sad, some happy or maybe just plain memories of life during our younger days.

Perhaps for those with great capacity for nostalgia and sentimental feelings, lest you succumb to your emotions, my only obvious advice is for you to refrain from switching on the radios or television during the festival.

And just sleep yourself away... ZZZ, ZZZ, zzz, zzz ...

Enjoy.


www.pahang-delights.com where adventures, cultures and pleasures come alive.