Jotting down my diary while waiting for the next session began.Sitting beside me was my friend kept on heeding me I realized from my left squint and the intently gaze remained for few minutes without any colloquies.
“Sabah, you’re just so different from any other guys la”, suddenly his voice ruptured the silence.
Aghast.Penning down and I turned my head left promptly to give him a retort.
“Why did you say so?In what sense that make you think that I’m so different from any other guys?”,I pondered on.
“You don’t really play games like other guys play.I mean like soccer or futsal.Watching anime or playing remote-control games whatnots”,he replied anon.
“Well,even though I’m not really fond of/dislike all those games,unless I love morning/evening jog or badminton perhaps.But they’re just not really dominant to me.I still stick with cooking as my utmost liking.”, I riposted with a smirk.
And from there we chewed the rag,talking over from where and when cooking has been my forte.
Not every guy loves cooking unless he reluctantly need to ‘rummage’ through the kitchen.Not every guy would unflinchingly say “Oh,cooking is my hobby!” and not every guy could accept the cogitation asserting that every guy should fritter away some times in the kitchen and to some extent,some mothers are imbuing their sons “If you wanna find/marry a ‘anak dara’,make sure she really knows cooking.”.Or some preposterous thoughts from the guys deeming seriously it as How ‘Bapok’/’Pondan’/Gay that guy is when they discern that from all of so many hobbies,why cooking should be his cup of tea!
Everything has been brought forth from my childhood’s epoch.While most of the children enjoyed playing at the playground or sitting deadlocked in front of the TV playing TV games – I reckon that time MARIO had been quite prevailing,I would be accompanying mama to the market and frequently been taught how to choose fresh/ripe/unripe vegetables or meats – plus, she would be exhorting what type of dishes would match fairly with the vegetables or meats.So,there went my 1st starting point where my enthusiasm in cooking elicited to just squander away my free time unlike those normal children.
Mama and I would sunder and take turn doing work.I mean house chores like every ‘ibu’ does at home – again another peculiar things for a normal guy,but most of the time she would let me wielding the kitchen although that time I just successfully made out certain dishes like frying rice,fish,noodles,making ‘sup sayur masin’ and sauted vegetables -they might have sounded so cinch or some chinese people would opined them as ‘sap-sap soi’ but what would you say when you see a primary three guy perspiringly in the kitchen cooking for a family of five while a pile of school’s homework was awaiting him ahead? Mind you,to be schooled in the chinese primary needs a very high tenacity especially when it comes to completing piles of homework -writing essays and chinese calligraphy,learning grammars and ancient poems,etc and I remember it had once become an issue when most of the chinese schools’ students had no choice but to shoulder bounteous school’s bags everyday.
My engrossment in cooking became quite formidable ever since my family started doing business on school’s canteens and food catering.Waking up early in the morning at 4.30am was another endurance and before school,I would help out preparing ‘soto’ and ‘gado-gado’ to be sold or frying curry puffs and later that would rush to school.My dad registered a license,to be qualified expanding our business on food catering under the name RUZLYZA CAFE.RUZLYZA is a combination of our three siblings names -FaiRUZ,FaizLY and FaireZA and it was adumbrated by mama who believed that ‘rezeki anak-anak’ would someday change our family life by God’s will under that combined names.
Alhamdullilah our business went out lustrously and request upon request,every week seemed like no holidays for us.From hundreds to thousand people to be catered and from an hour of nap to no sleeping hours at all had been our bread and butter.This routine of life continued until my secondary school up to form 5 and there was no any other specific thing I would do except ‘dancing’ with the ‘kuali’ or ‘kawah’ which were excessively big in size.Study time?Yeap,I did study but most of the time amidst waiting the beef which took for hours to be fully cooked or break time.So,I stole some times there.
Mama was quite anxious on how I managed my studies therefore she sent me to night and weekends tuition classes -BM,Add Math,Modern Math and English.The rest of the subjects were merely lied on my own and i used to keeping my finger crossed.Thus,morning to school,afternoon in the kitchen and night to tuition classes.Somehow to some extent,I just wanted to give up thinking of how hectic my life was but upon seeing how hard mama striving for three of us,every dribbled sweats counted just to pay our school’s fees and tuition classes,I proved myself wrong and started to infer the meaning of mom’s sacrifices who had been longing for her children’s success.
Early in the morning which was a doom day for me,dad received a call from my aunt who’s working in Jabatan Pendidikan calling up to announce my SPM results.I just didn’t dare listening to the conversation and getting to know what had been up to my results.Mama walked close to me.With her eyes bursting into tears and sweating shirt,she gave me a big warmth hug and whispered into my ears with her crackling voice”Son,congrats to you”.A really despondent ambience early in the morning I had ever felt my whole life even though to me it’s still a minute reciprocation I had ever done.
Yeap,till now my family is still engaging with food business and if to count how long the duration we have been engrossing in it,I would rather ask you lets count how many drops of sweats my parents have been exuding.Every now and then,still mama would say this over the phone “Eh,this week will be quite busy and how nice it would be if you were here so that we could do the cookings together!”.Alas,the only thing I could reply “Ma,if I were on holidays,why not kan?For sure I’ll be helping you out.” and she would chuckle on the phone.
So my gentle readers,to you I could be so different from any other guys or too ‘bapok’ as for a ‘jantan’,but the real life from where I come from has mold me up into a person for who i am now.Even though I’ve just begun working which is very far deviant from my propensity,cooking or playing with ‘kuali’ would be the last thing I would abhor in my whole life.
May be from now I should consider on opening up a restaurant somewhere in Sabah,Sarawak or KL just to ensure that besides proclaiming myself as an engineer,I too can be conceded as a ‘chef bertauliahkan engineer’ one day!Eh,apekah?hehe…
Faizly's Life Rumble 
