SACRIFICE

HARI RAYA QURBAN

Last year this time around, I was in Kompong Cham, Phnom Penh distributing Qurban donations from well-meaning Malaysians to the needy Cambodian Muslims of Kompong Cham and several other kampongs. It was an experience I never forget.

This year, Qurban was in the suburbs of Kelana Jaya, a far cry from the likes of Kompong Cham. Mimi, our "Dublin" daughter wanted to Qurban a small portion of her Euro, not sure whether to term it as "hard-earned" Euro.

The family first performed our prayers at Masjid Abu Bakar, a recently completed mosque in SS19 Subang Jaya, a two par-5 distance from our house.

The usual "salam-bersalaman" with the neighbors followed after the prayers, a time to forgive all those talks/grouses/complains about the neighbors. Alhamdulillah I had none of those misgivings and therefore can openly embraces the salams with a peace of mind.

The machets and knives were presumed sharp when we drove to Masjid Kelana Jaya. Time for the slaughter. Such brave words from one who watches the slaughter from a safe distance.

OK Mimi, that's your cow. Well, not exactly all yours, one-seventh of it. Sharing the cow with you included a reknowned butcher, Bapak Om. He "slaughters" friends on the golf-course, and hence called a butcher. But as you know Mimi, golf is a fair game. What goes around, comes around. Bapak Om sometimes gets slaughtered too. That's when he said he played "like a cow".

Of course slaughtering a cow in the urban is not an easy task. The village folks will smile at the efforts of the urban folks. The urban folks like to call it the spirit of gotong-royong. The poor cow could have died of suffocation with the number of urban-folks attempting to hold it still. Gotong royong?

And the urban folks got plenty of help from our neighbors, no not "jiran tetangga" but "jiran dari seberang". In exchange for their voluntary work, they brought back the daging Qurban - a fair exchange.

See the butcher at work? That's Bapak Om aka Omar Aziz and he's armed with a Rambo knife skinning the cow with ease. He is not "jiran dari seberang". We affectionately called him Bapak Om. He is the "jiran dalam Saujana", that 5-star dwelling gated community where I spend early mornings burning off my calories on my bike.

Again, in the spirit of gotong royong, the men were busy skinning, "de-meating" (got such word kah) the carcass and later putting the meat in 1kg bags for distribution.

The ladies were also "gotong-royonging" at the make shift kitchen. The menu for the hard-working urban folks and their helpers were...what else...meat of several dishes. "Take a look at this meat, dah empuk ke?"

And this lady at the kitchen looked very familiar. Seen her somewhere, very very often. Mimi, you know her????

And this guy looks familiar too!!!!

And he promises to be more actively involved in the slaughtering for next year's Qurban. We shall see.