A New Friend

This post is dedicated to En. Ariffin Mamat (Pakpayne), a new friend from Dubai.
It was a beautiful surprise when I read Pakpayne's post entitled He Sent Me A Semutar. It was just a small gift from me but he must have felt like I have given him The Burj Al Arab.
Everything started after my getting some comments on my blogsite from Pakpayne from Dubai, I decided to send him a small gift via my cousin Kamal who was on a business trip there. Since the gift was just a kilogram of sambal daging or serunding daging as the non Kelantanese prefer to call it, Kamal was willing to carry it. Later I decided to send some kain batik lepas to be used as semutar after seeing Pakpayne using some other kind of cloth as a semutar during his bekwah (feast) in Dubai. I know such small gifts will definitely be meaningful to those staying faraway from home.
Pakpayne is a trueblue Kelantanese as he hailed from Kemubu which is a village on the otherside of the Kelantan River from my village of Chekok, Jaba. I used to remember those football games between our two villages in the olden days.The came by boat from across the river.
What I want to tell you now is that how the small gift was appreciated by Pakpayne especially the semutar. He picked my cousin Kamal and Zul from the airport and feted them to lunch at his house. Immediately after receiving the gift of kain semutar, he wore them and asked his son to take a photograph with the three of them wearing the semutar of different colors. His son couldn't help it and quipped a comment that the three of them look like from a Hindustani film.

Pakpayne wearing a semutar. He looks like a true Kelantan Malay warrior.
From left to right: Zul, Kamal and my new friend Pakpayne.

When Kamal came back to Malaysia, he immediately called me from KL and spoke in superlatives of how Pakpayne treated the both of them in Dubai. Though it was their first meeting, they felt that Pakpayne was like a long lost friend.

I didn't meet Kamal until he came to the house on Saturday 17th May when we had the solat hajat kesyukuran. Kamal passed me the two gifts that Pakpayne sent to me all the way from Dubai.



The plate is edged with 24K gold with a picture of Burj Al Arab Dubai and it is made in Japan. The other gift is the Arab pipe which we call the hoogah. What more can I say about this friend that I have yet to meet? Come July he will be back in Malaysia and I am planning to take him somewhere in the jungle to see the precious ikan kelah (tor tambroides). The kelah is at the sanctuary somewhere in Taman Negara Pahang. It is purported to be one of the best freshwater gamefish. Though he wont be able to cast a rod there, hopefully seeing the river teeming with this precious fish will satiate his desire to eat them. Who knows, maybe one of the fish may jump out of the water into our pot? Sometimes we just get lucky.
Till we meet in July, I wish you the best of everything for you and your family.