“Do you want to eat anything? I can cook it for you. What do you have in mind?” he asked, from his usual position at the dining table, wearing his usual brown and blue checked sarung with starch white pagoda round neck shirt and a Lucky Strike dandling from the corner of his mouth, beneath his bushy grayish moustache.
“I think I want to eat “masak asam”….I’ve been dying to eat it since last week anyway. “Can you cook it for me, ayah?” I answered, not letting go of the opportunity whilst wearing the tired look on my face, considering I’ve just got back home from Shah Alam in a bus.
And so, in merely a few minutes after that, I ate delicious “masak asam” cooked by my ayah. He is a fast and talented cook. He can cook a few rather complicated dishes in just an hour time. Like Anthony Bourdein and with chilies as his must-have ingredients, he would begin experimenting with food. He loves to produce new recipe, and I am happy to become his taster. For fear of being asked to cook herself (my mother is not very fond of cooking), she will always ask us, siblings, to compliment on any food that he had meticulously prepared, so that he will have enough pride to cook again.
Out of his love towards chilies, ayah has planted 436 of these plants at my grandmother’s backyard. Therefore, he spends a lot of time here, tending to his chickens and ducks, not forgetting the grey cat. This is also the place where I always found him, with a newspaper at hand, too engross in his mind that he failed to notice my presence right beside him. You know what they say about a man and his newspaper; they are not actually reading it, their mind was on something else.
He is not only fast in cooking, but also fast in driving! Without a doubt, his skills in driving are excellent, just like Juan Pablo Montoya. With his thinning skin around his arm and hand, due to the medicine that he took for his failing liver, my ayah would grip the steering wheel and off we go to Terengganu, Malacca,
Kuala Lumpur
and Johore. Due to the high speed driving, we would arrive at these places in no time.
Once, at around ten in the evening, I asked him. “Where did you just go, I haven’t seen you all day.”
Casually, very casually, he answered, “Oh, I’ve just got back from
Penang
in Bagan Serai, I have to buy something for my “kebun”.
And I was like, “But I saw you this morning at eight, eating in the kitchen.”
He smiled, forcing his bushy moustache to tweak a little upward, “Yes, and I went to
Penang
half an hour after that.”
Imagine that. I can assure you that there are no hyperbole elements in the statements above.
With him in the driver seat, I was never once afraid or worried when he sped or overtook the car in front of us. He is also the one that taught me many lessons in driving, such as…
Before you turn on the ignition, prepare a mental note of where do you want to go.
Pick a route and stick to it.
When your car was hit from the back, try not to stop and check the damages. Go straight to the police station or crowd.
And I adhere to his advice on driving. I’m planning to convey these driving tips to my boyfriend soon (he is in the process of getting his drover’s license).
My ayah is not very fond of sleeping at hotels and our relatives’ houses. This is may be due to the fact that he does not like to burden other people. And it was due to this fact as well that made me had little chance to have a sleepover at my friends’ houses or went for school trips during my high school years.
In every few months, my ayah would be away from home for a couple of days. He would spend his time in the jungle to fish, hunt or join the 4 x 4. Upon hearing the sound of engine, I would be happy to greet him, bring his stuff into the house and check out what exotic animals did he managed to hunt this time. In previous trips, we had scrumptious meals of “rendang” from porcupine meat and “pelanduk”.
I have to thank him for instilling the habit of reading in me. His fondness towards newspaper is unquestionable. Once, after a hunting trip, he came home to a house without the daily newspaper and boy, you should see that look on his face. We, my brother and I quickly went out to the news vendor and bought one home. He encourages me to read national geographic, biography, war stories and encyclopedia.
My ayah is a morning person. He would get up early in the morning, prepares breakfast for us in the form of fattening nasi lemak or fried mihun. With his wavy hair neatly combed, his long sleeve blue shirt smartly tucked in, he would go to the wet market picking and choosing the best and the fresh fish, chicken or vegetable for lunch. His routine is very much expected by the vendors at the wet market that if they found my mother instead of him doing the chores, they would ask about his whereabouts.
Well, I guess that is it about my beloved ayah. I hope that through his habits, attitudes, hobbies and other traits that I have mentioned above could give you a clear description about his true persona.
“I think I want to eat “masak asam”….I’ve been dying to eat it since last week anyway. “Can you cook it for me, ayah?” I answered, not letting go of the opportunity whilst wearing the tired look on my face, considering I’ve just got back home from Shah Alam in a bus.
And so, in merely a few minutes after that, I ate delicious “masak asam” cooked by my ayah. He is a fast and talented cook. He can cook a few rather complicated dishes in just an hour time. Like Anthony Bourdein and with chilies as his must-have ingredients, he would begin experimenting with food. He loves to produce new recipe, and I am happy to become his taster. For fear of being asked to cook herself (my mother is not very fond of cooking), she will always ask us, siblings, to compliment on any food that he had meticulously prepared, so that he will have enough pride to cook again.
Out of his love towards chilies, ayah has planted 436 of these plants at my grandmother’s backyard. Therefore, he spends a lot of time here, tending to his chickens and ducks, not forgetting the grey cat. This is also the place where I always found him, with a newspaper at hand, too engross in his mind that he failed to notice my presence right beside him. You know what they say about a man and his newspaper; they are not actually reading it, their mind was on something else.
He is not only fast in cooking, but also fast in driving! Without a doubt, his skills in driving are excellent, just like Juan Pablo Montoya. With his thinning skin around his arm and hand, due to the medicine that he took for his failing liver, my ayah would grip the steering wheel and off we go to Terengganu, Malacca,
Kuala Lumpur
and Johore. Due to the high speed driving, we would arrive at these places in no time.
Once, at around ten in the evening, I asked him. “Where did you just go, I haven’t seen you all day.”
Casually, very casually, he answered, “Oh, I’ve just got back from
Penang
in Bagan Serai, I have to buy something for my “kebun”.
And I was like, “But I saw you this morning at eight, eating in the kitchen.”
He smiled, forcing his bushy moustache to tweak a little upward, “Yes, and I went to
Penang
half an hour after that.”
Imagine that. I can assure you that there are no hyperbole elements in the statements above.
With him in the driver seat, I was never once afraid or worried when he sped or overtook the car in front of us. He is also the one that taught me many lessons in driving, such as…
Before you turn on the ignition, prepare a mental note of where do you want to go.
Pick a route and stick to it.
When your car was hit from the back, try not to stop and check the damages. Go straight to the police station or crowd.
And I adhere to his advice on driving. I’m planning to convey these driving tips to my boyfriend soon (he is in the process of getting his drover’s license).
My ayah is not very fond of sleeping at hotels and our relatives’ houses. This is may be due to the fact that he does not like to burden other people. And it was due to this fact as well that made me had little chance to have a sleepover at my friends’ houses or went for school trips during my high school years.
In every few months, my ayah would be away from home for a couple of days. He would spend his time in the jungle to fish, hunt or join the 4 x 4. Upon hearing the sound of engine, I would be happy to greet him, bring his stuff into the house and check out what exotic animals did he managed to hunt this time. In previous trips, we had scrumptious meals of “rendang” from porcupine meat and “pelanduk”.
I have to thank him for instilling the habit of reading in me. His fondness towards newspaper is unquestionable. Once, after a hunting trip, he came home to a house without the daily newspaper and boy, you should see that look on his face. We, my brother and I quickly went out to the news vendor and bought one home. He encourages me to read national geographic, biography, war stories and encyclopedia.
My ayah is a morning person. He would get up early in the morning, prepares breakfast for us in the form of fattening nasi lemak or fried mihun. With his wavy hair neatly combed, his long sleeve blue shirt smartly tucked in, he would go to the wet market picking and choosing the best and the fresh fish, chicken or vegetable for lunch. His routine is very much expected by the vendors at the wet market that if they found my mother instead of him doing the chores, they would ask about his whereabouts.
Well, I guess that is it about my beloved ayah. I hope that through his habits, attitudes, hobbies and other traits that I have mentioned above could give you a clear description about his true persona.
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