Good times. Good times indeed.
I’ve always thought Ramadhan is such a tiring thing to spend with its main activity of starving myself. My mind would be occupied by the horrific imagination of how I would endure the lectures without the three main component of life – namely breakfast, lunch and dinner – and survived my intellect up to the next day.
My favourite food during Ramadhan?
The one and only – AYAM GOLEK!
Could there be anything better than ayam golek? The juiciness of its meat, the crispiness of its skin, the strong sense of its inviting odour – it’s so beautiful I’m going to die! Just imagine – that one whole chicken, on your dining table, served on a plate with the accompanying sweet and spicy sauce – can you really blame me for being fat?
And of course, aside from its deliciousness, ayam golek tends to bring lots of happy memories of my life.
My family, of course, adore the dish. My siblings, especially. And my mother, being the very devoted busy housewife that she was, always ensured that there would be more than enough dishes to feed the seven of us – my five siblings and my parents – every time we were about to break our fast.
Everyone’s favourite food would be served – my father with his ‘rendang daging’, my elder sister [kakak] with her favourite vegetables [she was always on a strict diet regime in her teens], my elder brother [abe] with his ‘ikan paten masak tempoyak’, me with my ‘ikan keli masak pedas’ and ‘tauhu jepun’ and my younger brother and sister with their all-time favourite can’t-live-without ‘ayam masak merah’.
Our meal would be filled with chit-chattering and loud conversations concerning each others’ daily lives. We would ask our father about his work, my mother would be babbling about why her daughters weren’t [and still aren’t] able to cook, my kakak about her friends at boarding school and her favourite boybands, abe would just laugh and provided the comic timings, my younger siblings would demand for expensive games during those happy hours and me would just talk about things I hated most in life.
Ayam golek would be served after we returned home from the tarawih prayers [of which I often prayed for only two rakaat and sneaked to my neighbour’s house to watch Bollywood movies] accompanied with its heavenly sweet and sour sauce in a small plate. Me and my siblings would sit on the table [I was wayyyy much skinnier back then] and just indulged ourselves in the happiness of chewing a good piece of chicken meat while watching some Hong Kong dramas aired on Astro. Life felt so good again.
But I was only eight then.
It is all so different now that we’ve grown into adults, is it not?
Since we’re not permanently residing in our homes, the joy of breaking our fast is not much felt anymore. I mean, where can the joy possibly be obtained after attending classes for ten straight unbearable hours? Once we set foot on our homes, the cosy mattress of our beds would be our first pit stop until the Maghrib azan is heard. Such a hypocrite species that we are. But then, seriously, who the hell gave us the idea of a good time management during the Ramadhan of where it is great to utilise it with exercising and doing chores? That person must have never felt the wrath of fasting in a super-hot [as in temperature, not in looks] Shah Alam. Dehydration, sweats, headaches – all combined into one!
And imagine studying Equity and Philosophy with those kinds of distractions in our head!
So what is it again that is fun during the Ramadhan?
Oh yes, friends. The replacements to the absence of our families. To whom else do we converse about our fast-breaking menu other than our friends?
Me: MJ.
MJ: What?
Me: Should I get bandung or orange juice for buka puasa [fast-breaking]?
MJ: *with a cynical laugh* dude, it’s eleven thirty in the morning. Buka puasa is at 7.30. it’s like what, eight hours from now?
Me: I know. But it’s such a comfort to fantasize about the drinks in our heads anyway. *with a dreamy half-starving face*
Friends in need are friends indeed. Especially during Ramadhan times. Super-especially when we are away from our homes. And they are there when we need to push our asses up to study at three in the morning since our Ramadan afternoon are often filled with the very-much needed sleep in order to distract the extreme starvation we feel in our stomachs. And the late night lepaking at kopitiam or McD.
I’ve been asking around where to find a good place to get ayam golek. The answer has been disappointing. Why is it so hard to find such a dish in Shah Alam? Maybe because the students here aren’t much of an eater like us Kelantan-blooded people – tons of ayam golek stalls can be found at any Kelantan’s street sides. But I guess it’s not very practical to do that here in Shah Alam considering the traffic jams and overpopulated vehicles we have. And plus the ‘presumably’ air pollution [notice how I put the exclusion clause there]. Even my mom complained about the same problem. Being the main food expert in my life, that means this case of ayam golek’s missing-in-action issue in Shah Alam is very severe indeed!
Kenny Rogers is a good alternative, albeit an expensive one. Pay almost twenty bucks for only a quarter of the chicken - but then all are costly year after year during the fasting month. Even my housemate complained about the hiking prices of the kuih-muih – it used to be three pieces per ringgit – now it’s eighty cents for each piece. Since when does our traditional kuih have something to do with the market price??
The chicken comes rolling indeed. Just not by the street sides, I guess.
And my friends – thanks for making this tiring Ramadhan month bearable.
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