The smell of kuih raya fills the house and I was immediately transported back to a time when i don't have to worry about bills to pay, make budgets every single month and have to rack my brain on what to wear on weekdays. Yes, the time when I was younger.

I remember a day when i was no more than 11, maybe 10 or 9. It was really close to iftar but seriously, I felt like I was walking in Gurun Kalahari. Back then, my auntie was still not here and I was the only person having to angkut all the food and drinks to the table for iftar. On that day, I was so thirsty and when my grandmother asked me to carry the drink from our kitchen to the hall (our house is like kampung house), I jumped at the opportunity. As I held the big plastic jug in my hands, I felt pretty insane. It's like I lost the ability to think straight. I gulped the drink down.

And I was caught. I mean, nobody walked on me when I drank the tea but once I stepped to the table, my grandma said 'ha dah tak puasa dah'. how can she know based on my looks alone? Ah..I was young and foolish.

and there was this one time when my school was having this program susu sekolah. i remembered that i ordered two. i was eleven then. my friends and i were fooling around as usual but it must have been pretty intense since it was friday. we had somewhat like a school play because i had a kain batik. oke, really can't remember what i did on that day. but the last thing i know, we were sitting outside the school and we were drinking the milk while covering our heads with kain batik. keji gile perangai. dah la buat depan pintu pagar sekolah.

i finished one of the milk and when i reached home, mestilah jadi pelakon terhebat and continued feigning tiredness. auntie looks at my face and she can instantly tell that i didn't fast on that day. how can she possibly do that?

and i remembered my younger brother and i went to the toilet and drank water. haha. tu la org suruh duduk diam-diam masa bulan puasa tanak kan? lps tu lari sana lari sini, penat lps tu batal pose. but emak said nothing though i knew she knew what we were up to.

I am excited during ramadhan because this will be the best time to main mercun. Back then when my siblings and cousins are younger, we will surely main mercun right after iftar. we will be holding those mercun in our hands right through iftar, as if somebody might take it away from us and we will never see it again. we will be rushing to gulp down our drinks and food and will be making such a racket once we finish iftar. there were only 2 girls at that time among all the boys so you can imagine how panicked the girls were when all the boys have finished eating. and of course we had to help clean up the plates and food after iftar. and we try to hurry to the point sometimes we almost bang into each other. i can still remember the smell of belerang and the excitement to play mercun.

My favorite will be the one yang keluarkan api macam-macam kaler. sumpah tak ingat ape bende. and another one willl be pasang pelita keliling rumah. but i guess we are older now so we won't be enjoying this. i actually offered my cousins money to buy mercun but they do not want it. bosan betul budak-budak ni. di manakah semangat raya mereka?

so what about you? anything that comes to mind during this time? well i do. i can't eat much kuih raya because my nostrils have been full with its smell for the whole month, thanks to dear auntie. TSK