Nissa's Raya Cards

It’s 23rd Ramadhan today. Raya is slightly more than a week away. Radio stations have started airing the evergreen Raya songs of M.Nasir, P.Ramlee, Rafeah Buang, Sanisah Huri, Uji Rashid & Hail Amir, just to name a few. Once in a while, I'd hear some rather weird sounding Raya songs. Bila dengar betul-betul, ahh they are tunes dari negara seberang. With the influx of Indonesian singers into our music industry today, I guess, it’s inevitable that this happens. But my personal favorites are still those which I could associate to my budak-budak school days.

Synonymous with Raya songs are Raya cards. I have stopped sending Raya cards a long time ago. I blame my not so nice handwriting these days (due to doing more typing than pen on paper scribblings) coupled with my laziness in organizing the required stationery as reasons for my not sending any more Raya cards.

My oblivion to Raya cards came to a halt about a week ago when Nissa showed me a Raya card she received from one of her friends. She asked me if I could get her Raya cards to balas her friend’s card. Ummpp….it’s been ages since I last bought Raya cards. Nak beli kat mana eh? Memory Lane ade kot…

So Mother and Daughter dengan confident nya walked into a Memory Lane outlet in Subang Parade and canvassed the display racks for them Raya cards. I told Nissa to pick the ones she liked and show them to me before we head to the cashier counter to make payments.

As she browsed through the cards, she picked one sweet floral card which had the words “Kepada Kekasih Ku” written on it. Almost immediately she popped me this question.

“Mama, kekasih tu apa?” asked Nissa innocently. Haiya...ni yang malas nak bercerita panjang lebar dihari-hari berpuasa, dihari-hari yang tekak dah dry up ni. I was somewhat lucky as a simple explanation about love and loving someone did the job.

Then she picked up another one. “Kepada Suami Ku” were the calligraphed words on the card. This time she made a different remark pulak. “Suami and isteri are supposed to stay in the same house kan, Mama…so kenapa need to send Raya card pulak?” Alamak…lagi mau kena cerita lah pada ini budak.

I told her that not all couples are fortunate enough and are able to stay together under the same roof. The husband could be working in Kertih, working on an oil rig (thanks to the old friends buka puasa outing last week, I came up with this brilliant example) and the wife could be in Melaka, so it’d be very thoughtful to be sending each other cards. She then responded, “Hantar email je lah. Can say more things, and have animation, music or send sms, even cheaper.”

Nissa has made her point actually. But why on earth were we in Memory Lane and choosing cards for her friends, beats the daylights out of me. So, I hurried her into finalizing her choice of cards, paid them and headed back home.

That night, we both sat and painstakingly (only I felt this, nak terlelap memasukkan cards ke dalam envelopes dia) organized the writing of the Raya cards. She enjoyed it of course. With so much enthusiasm, she took out one card after the other and wrote her friends’ names on them. She asked me what if her friends didn’t reply her cards. I told her to do this with sincerity and don’t harapkan balasan. Then her face changed and showed little sadness over my statement.

Not wanting her to be disappointed over the hard work, I dengan bangganya perturunkan an old trick I used during my Raya-card-sending-days. Told her to try this pantun dua kerat.

And with that Mama dearest telah shared this overly used (and abused) pantun dua kerat.

Pecah kaca pecah gelas
Sudah baca harap balas

Let’s see if any of her friends get the message yah….