Moment to Reflect ( Pt 11 ) – Her Majesty’s little garden

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SELAMAT MENYAMBUT AIDIL ADHA 1434

Sleep over a problem and you may see things in a better light. That was what Pakcik did, and something very trivial triggered a change of plan; No longer going into the coconut business and all on global scale!

It was two mornings ago when I heard Makcik hollering at me from our back gardens, what I call our ‘tanah sekangkang kera’ (small plot of ground).

“ Babah, come down and take some photos of my chilies!”.

At that very moment I was in my library upstairs, totally absorbed in my second reading of Ali Jusoh’s Belahan Mimpi ( read foot-note below on the author,Ali Jusoh ). When I am referred to with the endearment term like ‘Babah’, it means an order from Her Majesty. So hurry up, or you go without dinner!

                                                                  Fajar Bakti 1994

I dropped my Belahan Mimpi, picked up my Leica M’s look-alike camera and rushed down. She was about to pick a few chilies and she wished to keep a photo of her first harvest, beautiful long red chilies. For size she readily obliged to place her fingers alongside a chili - just bare fingers without her royal diamonds, varnish and all

Look how long they are - cared for by tender fingers

I only have 5 fingers on one hand

Having fulfilled my duty, I decided to loiter around, taking snap-shots of other plants growing on our ‘tanah sekangkang kera’. I found myself marvelling at the number of fruit trees, vegetables, flower plants and herbs we had collected over the years. I cannot help admiring Her Majesty’s joy in looking after her plants, as much as the satisfaction I find from the effort I spend on Almanar’s children. Isn’t this a win-win situation? Isn’t this a reason that has blessed our life with joy since we moved here twenty years ago? How naive I must be to even dream of starting something new at ‘taraf antarabangsa’ (world class) at this stage of our life.

Look at some of the few photos of plants introduced over twenty years with minimal assistance from me in maintaining them.

n/b  Please click on pictures to enlarge

Please

I am not made like coconut

With stem to withstand

The force of sea storm

I bend my back

Breaking my neck

To bear a bunch

To ripen for you

Pisang Abu for you

Grow healthy, my lovely Nangka

With smaller siblings near the bvottom

On a tree outside our fence - Namgka (bukan Cempedak) diluar pagar  

Durian Belanda ( Dutch durian?) - fresh from the tree

A younger brother on the plant

Mother plant growing healthy

And from Pak Temuk - Red lady's finger (the Red Okra) 

       We can never thank him enough 

Of course we have Her Majesty's green fingers as well

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That is not an exhaustive list. 
Has any one outside Terengganu heard of such fruit plants as jambu arang, buah ppisang (not banana – watch the pp, the Terengganu way) and buah terajang (hard-kick fruit)? We will post some pictures in good time.

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In short, let Her Majesty enjoy the produce from her ‘tanah sekangkang kera’ and I the product from Almanar. 
A happy ending!

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Foot-note:

I give full credit to the novelist, Ali Jusoh, for his effort to organise the first group of children when I wished to start my tuition class at Amanar twenty years ago, He was then the Headmaster of a school hardly 3km away and has retired a few years ago. He has written some twenty novels one of which is expected to be published soon. To his credit he was a Pemegang Anugerah Sastera for his Bumi Harapan, and a winner of the national Hadiah Sako for his Alor Miang. It hurts me deeply that as the result of his current illness he can no longer transmit onto paper what his fertile mind can still produce. A couple of weeks ago Pakcik took him on a sentimental journey along Sungei Nerus of Terengganu where a number of historical events took place and these events were referred to in his novel, Belahan Mimpi. That prompted me to do a second reading of the book.

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 Berkhidmat kerana Tuhan untuk kemanusiaan.