Le étage de Raya part 1

Usually we spend half day at home entertaining local residential baraan (Javanese term for Marhaban), and by noon we’ll be going back to Batu Pahat. But this year 1st Syawal was celebrated at Batu Pahat, Johor (mum’s side granny) for the 1st time. Left home at 7am and we arrived just before they started Solat Eid at masjid kampung.

Most of my cousins were there including lil cousin Huda

She's as white as a doll with round eyes and curly hair!

After salam2, makan ketupat, rendang, collecting duit raya then we started the visiting; a total of 8 houses of relatives, zuhur at Mak Long Nah’s house and Asar at one classical surau kampung.

Bet you can't see anything like this at the city

The 5th house was Mak Long Nah’s. Initiated by the story of rendang, moving on to cerita daging batang pinang berapa ringgit sekilo, moving on to the story of the best breed cow for Qurban. Dad as a veterinarian sure can’t stop talking about this. So here’s the story of selembu.

The memoirs of selembu
Ever heard of that word? Due to dad, it was a mixed between the gene of seladang and lembu; which is theoretically and practically impossible! Why? Because their DNA are somehow different from one another and don’t cope well. But back in Institut Haiwan Kluang, another reason why I’m proud my dad was once worked there apart from it’s the biggest Veterinary Centre in South East Asia, is because back in the 90s, there was a unit called ‘selembu’ when all other veterinary technology worldwide tried to have this species breed and failed. This tale of selembu began when one male seladang was somehow of unknown cause escaped from its seladang unit and went into the lembu unit (I can’t remember which lembu baka was it). Turned out to be this male seladang mated one female cow surprisingly by natural reproduction and reproduced the 1st filial selembu. An adult selembu is weigh over one tonne; almost twice normal breed cow! Aware of this profitable reproduction, local veterinarian suggested they started the selembu unit and do the AI (Artificial Insemination, called permanian beradas in Malay) to produce 2nd filial generation. The AI of this species was also presented to the veterinary centre of other countries. But the tragedy began when the 3rd filial generation of selembu was found sterile, even AI can’t help. So until the last selembu stood, that was the end of the chronicle of selembu. Afterwards many have tried to produce such species again, but failed. This is one mystery that no veterinarian could explain. Subhanallah! How He allowed such species to exist back in the 90s specifically in Institut Haiwan Kluang for only a few years when everyone else knows it was supposed to be impossible. The real preserved selembu is still kept in its museum.

That’s the end of selembu story. The 6th house was my atok sedara. He’s about the same age of my mum. Here the whole family was stunned by a shocking truth that mum, wasn’t able to speak in Malay when she started primary school. Dad who had married mum for almost 30 years too was laughing out loud in disbelief. And when mum began telling stories about her school days, I know I wasn’t able to stop laughing for the next 30 minutes.

Well it’s true though. Mum was raised in an almost pure Javanese family. And yes, then I am one Javanese girl who’s learning Japanese at the moment LOL. But hey, still I could understand Javanese a little. Our great-great-great granny due to mum, was from the mainland Java. So yeah, the blood is running inside of me.

So by dusk, we were back to Kluang and preparing for a journey to Negeri Sembilan the next morning.

Ps: Still working on the part 2. Please anticipate (winks)

2nd Ps: Even my lil bro Didin who's currently taking Agrotech claimed none of his friends ever known selembu existed. So there one ground for him to smug.