The Winding Road of Cameron...And the petai pit-stop

I never really get the hang of it, the snaky path up to Cameron Highlands, even now that I’m driving and my eyes are dead-on focused on the road ahead.

And as usual, the journey up through Tapah will never be complete without a stop for some ‘petai’ (my dad being a petai-lover). The ‘Orang asli’ people are always a nice bunch of folks.

A little kid was running in front of me with a bunch of those smell bombs. He seemed cheerfully pleased with himself when he offered his elder brother his loot.

Smiles still carved, I asked him, “Wahh..That’s a lot of petai...What’s your name, boy?”

(Wahh..banyak tol petai ko bwk...dik name pe dik??)

He looked puzzled and answered, “Mary-Anne”.

Mary-Anne??!!! Naturally, I was shocked. “Ehh..Isn’t that a girl’s name?” (tu bukn nme perempuan ke dik?)

He did not bother and soon shoots off back into the woods.

My father, aware of the dialogue, later turned to the old Orang asli man sitting on the ‘pangkin’ of which he was speaking to. “Hehe...Mary-Anne’s a beautiful name. Are all of you Christians?” he asked. (Cantik name Mary-Anne tu. Bang sume ni Kritian ke?)

“Yes. The whole tribe accepted a few years back. Really, now, I’ve actually find the right way. My heart finally felt peace,” he said.

(Ye. Bru bbrpe thun balik kami skmpung mnerime kristian. Benar2, skrng sy dh jmpe jlnnye. Hati sy bnyk tenang skrng)

“Wahh..That’s nice to hear. May I ask, were there any Muslims preaching here before?” asked my father.

“Of course there were. But they’re a bunch of no-goods,” he sighed with a pinch of dishearten breath.

“And why do you say that?” my father quickly asked with great interest.

“Well, a man came here before,” he explained, “preaching to us about this religion Islam. He told us we should abide by certain rules. What we should and should not do. He told us we must pray five times a day, not eat swine and even have our ‘nunu’ cut. We were appalled. He even said that we shouldn’t touch our dogs simply because we have to clean ourselves up with mud or something. All this and for what I ask you?? And to make matters worse, turns out the man later ran away with one of our daughters. Some man he was, trying to preach to us about God and everything.”

Seeing the whole scene and I began to wonder...Is cutting our ‘nunu’ really the most essential act of piety in Islam? Certainly, it is required for all muslim males to circumcise, but it is definitely not the most crucial and for certain it is not the very fundamental of Islam. And what of not eating swine and not drinking alcohol?

I mean, why should anyone abide to this laws if not for the belief they hold dearly in their hearts. For sometimes we may have forgotten, when we do our ‘ibadah’, or when we seek to do good, or when we tell others of our wonderful ‘ad-Din’, that the most fundamental in Islam is ‘Aqidah’, which forms our creed, our faith. For everything starts from the heart.

And if so it can be mended, the Orang asli old man may even embrace Islam...if only the approach was right the first time..