Ode to Pak Malim: An Epilogue

My favourite autumn picture

Pantuns, syaers and seloka, never failed to provoke the sense of playfulness that exists even in the most serious amongst us. The teasing, the challenge and counter challenge and its very allusive nature make the pantun an all time favourite. It is certainly my all time favourite, especially in moments of despair, in times when the world gets too serious, and the politics threaten to get too ridiculous.

My Choc-a-bloc blog is just what its name suggests – choc-a-bloc with all sorts of rants and jottings of just about anything from my cats and sayang mamas to things trivial that occupy my waking hours and sometimes my restless nights. So, when I feel the need to de-stress, my mind goes into a pantun mode. And as you can see I had even devoted syaers to blogspot and spammers. Oh, Kak Teh, do get a life!

As the 99^th commenter, Edelweiss noted, this certainly reminds us of the time when Abang Malaya bursts into my blog with such beautiful thought provoking lyrics that not only reflect on our time at Jalan Riong but also the occasionally rant and frustrations about the current political situation. And Abang Malaya, like Pak Malim caught the popular imagination and elicit the playfulness in us that resulted in long, and contagious balas membalas – from so many people. And Abang Malaya, like Pak Malim was anonymous and this provokes our curiousity even more in our quest to find out their identity – the people whose pens and cursors dance effortlessly to beautifully crafted words.

Syaers and pantuns feature quite seriously in my life, especially after doing my MA in Traditional Malay Literature and verses from Syaer Bidasari and Syaer Dang Sarat, which I am still studying, come dancing in my mind to distract me from the mundane things that I do.

So, thank you to all – especially to Pak Malim, Kucing Ray yang Alim and Abang Malaya, whoever and whereever he is and to those who sportingly responded in such hilarious manner and rhymes, keeping me awake and alert and certainly laughing to myself a lot during these gloomy, wet and dreary days of autumn. Thank you. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and I hope Pak Malim will still visit me.

Pantun memantun is not unknown when I get together with my siblings. Let me leave you with a taste of our brand of pantuns. After overdosing ourselves with food that Mak cooked and more from the stalls in and around Alor Setar, we’d sit lazily around the big family table, eyeing the piles of plates in the sink. Then someone would break the silence:

Baju lama baju lusuh,
Hai, pinggan banyak sapa nak basuh?

About Syaer Dang Sarat
Dang Sarat's Debut in Liverpool
A Tragic End to Dang Sarat