Mira and I just came back from a relative's nikah ceremony in Datuk Keramat. The food was good and the company was great, as most of the Syed Azlan clan was present. The ceremony itself was simple and Alhamdulillah, even with the pouring rain, it went on without a hitch, so congratulations to the newlyweds!
However, a few things struck me as odd. The hosts' neighbours seemed completely oblivious of the fact that there's a ceremony going on, zooming in and out of the lorong without a care in the world. One actually took sweet time to open their gate before driving his car into the driveway, holding up guests from entering the hosts' house away from the rain. Can't these people simply wait for the guests to be done with exiting their cars before moving on, I wondered?
Was it the rain that made them impatient and irrational, or they just couldn't care less? For this to happen in a Malay dominant suburb completely baffles me, as for 20 years of living in a mixed-race housing estate, whenever any of my neighbours has a kenduri going on, it's a mutual understanding that we Melayu-Cina-India neighbours would give way to guests, even going as far as parking our cars outside our lorong as to not disturb the ceremony proceedings. Whatever happened to the budi bahasa of the Malays? What caused them to shy away from their fellow neighbours?
Talking about budi bahasa...
After the nikah was complete, one of the host rep invited us to help ourselves to the buffet table. Me being hungry (as always) jumped to queue up for the grub (daging salai, awesome) and went off to find a seat at one of the tables laid out within the compound. However, no seat was available, as the tables were 'booked' by some ladies and their kids. I mean, hello? There I was, standing with a plateful of food obviously wanting to sit down, and this one lady looked at me, and told her running-around kids to sit down, probably so that I couldn't eat at the table 'reserved' for her family. Fucking pathetic, I thought. They're so hard up about getting a place to sit that they purposely denied me a seat? Not wanting to create a scene, I left and found a chair to sit on.
As I was eating, another lady came, and it was obvious at the time that i took her seat and instead of asking me politely to move away (which i would, like, damn, the chair didn't have her name on it but i'd move) she went on muttering under her breath about where she's gonna sit at. There were 2 vacant seats next to me and she went on to sit on one muttering away, placing one plateful of food on the other chair. Mira came around with her food and WTF on her face. So I had to move anyway, halfway eating, we went inside the house. It was a little awkward to be inside the house while the family was taking photographs and there we were stuffing our face, but we had nowhere else to sit. We sat on the floor close to the door, trying to get as much out of the way of the photography session.
So we sat there along with Mira's sisters and father waiting for the food-grabbing crowd to die down. As we were there, another lady (damn, lots of rude ladies around) was going in and out of the house, probably getting food for her kids. There was alot of us that she had to wriggle through, and this annoyed her, as if it's her divine right to be allowed clear passage. Guess it's too hard for her to say 'excuse me' or 'tumpang lalu'. And she had the cheek to give us the stink-eye for being there? I had the urge to chuck a handful of rice on the floor so she'd step on them barefoot and be further annoyed.
So we're finally done with our food, and as I went outside for a smoke, I see some of the guests standing around without a seat with food in hand, while our 'reserved' table awhile ago still had their asses down and done with their meals, chatting away. Rude people are rude, and with that, I told myself that common courtesy is no longer common among people. And for that to happen to the supposedly 'Melayu yang berbudi bahasa' saddened me a little, but i guess that's what living in the cruel big city does to most of us.
This story will be told to my children, so that they'd learn to respect people and not be surprised whenever they find themselves on the wrong end of the courtesy stick. |
