FIRST WEEK OF RAMADHAN

AlhamduliLlah, first week of Ramadhan has been & gone, one down three more to go! Unfortunately, my buddy came by and she's still around, so I've not been fasting for a few days already. I say 'unfortunately', because I don't like not fasting early in Ramadhan. Nanti by the next week orang semua dah biasa & relax puasa, kita baru terhegeh-hegeh nak get used to the hunger pangs, isy. Lagipun dah tak semangat nak start terawih by then.

I can't remember { signs of aging, ye Jie? } when it was I first started to fast, probably in darjah satu. Mula tu puasa half a day, Abah tolong kira. Dia kata, berapa hari boleh beraya depends on berapa hari puasa. So tolak-campur congak-congak, I think I got something like 12 days. Sooo excited, I thought I'd be getting duit raya every day for 12 days. Tipah tertipu bang...

Started puasa for whole days, probably a year or two after that. Tapi kekadang tu kecundang jugak hehehe. I think when I was in boarding school, ada la a few times yang tak tahan terlalu dahaga, so batal puasa dengan minum. Makan tak berani la, minum tu pun air dari sinki bilik air, kekonon basuh muka, tapi sambil tu teguk sikit hehehe :-)

Tapi bila time tabley puasa tu, especially if ada geng, balik hostel tengahari, masak maggi! Heran, bila berpuasa tak la terasa lapar sangat, tapi bila tak puasa perut bernyanyi-nyanyi. I think it's all in the mind. Bila kita ikhlas niat berpuasa untuk beribadat, our subconscious mind tells the body system to slow down with the gastric juices. Sebab tu jugak la smokers pun boleh takde smoke craving waktu berpuasa, tapi for the rest of the year punyalah susah nak berhenti merokok, kan?

So I read somewhere that puasa is the only ibadah yang solely hak Allah. Meaning, you fast because you do it for no one else but Allah, as He demands of you. Lagipun, only you & He would know if you puasa dengan sempurna or not because it is intangible, unlike other ibadahs even solat for instance, where you solat for Him but other people can see you solat. Tapi banyak gak kes orang tak puasa la. OK, I'm not patronising (or 'matronising', if you are a feminist) anyone, far from it as I know I am not a perfect muslim either. Just an observation. Tapi bak kata orang tua-tua, 'pandai makan, pandai la sorok' - in this case it is literally kena pandai makan sorok-sorok! I'm just sad to see that sometimes tu, dah la tak puasa, pastu makan in public pulak. So lepas tu, jangan la marah kalau ada orang non-muslim yang question sejauh mana kita punya iman & aqidah.

Dah, dah, Jie bukan ustazah yang nak berceramah. Each to his own, kubur sendiri-sendiri kan. Jie pun manusia yang terlalu kerdil di sisi Allah, ada gak kecundang puasa, ada gak culas solat, and a whole myriad of other dosa yang tak payah cerita la. But perhaps this holy month is a good time for self-evaluation, muhasabah diri setakat mana kita dah berusaha untuk buat yang terbaik untuk dunia & akhirat?