The cut that went through the water

Saturday, November 27, 2010

The cut that went through the water

Assalamu 'Alaikum

The cut that went through the water

It’s the traffic jam I told my wife. You try visiting our Aunt after work in the city I said to her. You’re lucky to reach her house by midnight, especially when it’s raining. Well it’s a bit of an exaggeration but weekday afterwork traffic is a monster of a battle everybody knows. In little towns or smaller cities, mum and dad will pick you up from school and then its off to Auntie Gayah for a slow afternoon tea, and you’d still reach home before Maghrib. Or so I eloquently explained to my wife and her late mother why city people visit relatives less often.

I was satisfied with the explanation and convinced myself it was true. But it wasn’t true was it; I knew the myriad reasons why things don’t hang together anymore. When dad was alive and we were still living under one roof we were tight. When we were kids we were tight; we fight each other like all normal boys do but when an outsider hurt anyone of us we would musketeer together instantly with all manner of fists in the air. When dad passed away we had mum to hold the emotional strings together. Mum’s long gone too.

Perhaps it’s because I studied Economics; had I studied Sociology or similar perhaps I would know the answer to a current pressing question. Does urbanisation loosen the ties that bind? Is it the beliefs, the politics or the sheer pressure of work to earn a living? Weekends are meant for groceries, shopping, kids’ tuitions and extra curricular activities. Sunday lunch time are reserved for weddings of friend’s daughters. When is the time we reserve for visits to people that matter, or don’t they matter anymore? When is the time we reserve to invite the people that matter, or don’t they matter anymore?

If this is the price of progress, it’s highly exorbitant. Give me the days of old anytime when ties bind, when people that matters, matter. This process of disaffection is an affliction and a monopoly of the western culture; it will never happen to the traditionalist culture and palatial manner of the Malays, or so I once believed. We don’t tie like we used to, and we don’t bind like we ought to. Will the process now degenerate to friendships soon when everything can be done online in cyber world?

The English axiom says blood’s thicker than water; the Malay axiom says you may never cut through water.

Wassalam,

Zahid