Greetings From India

Thank you to all of the well wishes. I am doing fine here in Manipal. It's always raining here, but I don't mind since it kept the weather cold enough for me not to waste my money on air-conditioning. But it does get a bit too cold at night. Had to use two thick blankets, a pair of socks AND a sweater to keep me comfortable.

The food is good, alhamdulillah. I've been eating a lot of vegetarian foods lately. Fish is quite scarce, but I ate one two nights ago at Fish Point. It was really tasty. I still miss my sambal belacan and kangkung belacan. I get good (and cheap) laundry service and good housekeeping here. I was initially given a single room that I applied for beforehand. However, the price they quoted was a lot more expensive than the one they had included in the booklet. In the end, I shifted to a double standard room, which is a lot cheaper, and Maziah, my classmate in INTEC, becomes my roommate. The room is not luxurious, but it's good enough.

I get to meet a lot of new friends, and I instantly bonded with two girls from KMB and KTT, Hani and Najwa, respectively. We tried foods from Snack Shack, Saiba, the food court, Fish Point and various other places. They're relatively cheap as compared to Malaysia, with Fish Point being the cheapest so far. 7 of us had our dinner there, and that only amounts to Rs 127, which is roughly about RM12. Snack Shack has good food, but unfortunately, it is too loud at times. The lecturers here are very nice and helpful. My mentor, who is my "parent" here, is Dr. Maneesh. He teaches Biochemistry, and he is extremely nice and calm. My seniors (from the March batch) are also nice and friendly, and they helped us around with buying things (and bargaining), finding good food, registration with the police and things like that.

I had my first lecture yesterday on the subject of Biochemistry, where we learnt about amino acids, and then another lecture on Anatomy, in which we were introduced to the anatomical positions and movements. This morning I had my first encounter with the cadaver and we had a lecturer who showed us the basic things we should know, like nerves, veins and the likes. The time difference between here and Malaysia is about 2 and a half hours.

Unfortunately, the mosque is quite far from our hostel. Not only that, there is no allocation for women at the mosque. I do see Muslim Indians from time to time here. We have not been given a surau for our prayers, so we had to settle for prayers in the room. My friends and I are making our effort to perform as many solat jamaah as that we can afford. I reminded a male friend of mine to convey whatever they get from the mosque to us girls. Insha-Allah, when things are totally settled down and established, we would begin an usrah.

So far so good. I'm loving it here.

Life = 'Ibadah. Really?

Initially, I thought of writing a post on the "grand lunch" Pycno, Bea, Elvis, Hiyoshi, Skye and I had, but I think Crimsonskye had nicely captured the moment with her words. I've left a long comment on her entry as well.

Instead I choose to write about our lives and our purpose. Most of these points are extracted from Ustaz Hasrizal's talk I attended quite recently. If we were to ask humans: "what is our purpose in life?", each would have their own answers, be it fame, money, status, etc. One of the most talked-about psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, had only these words as to the answer to the purpose of our life: "to fulfill our ego and libido (sexual desire)". The most average answer that most people seem to practise in their daily life: "we live to eat, sleep, work, get married, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work...", which is no better than a herd of goats. No goat wakes up and vows to himself: "I hope to be a better goat today than the goat I was yesterday." None of these answers are good enough for us to know which direction we are heading in life. I personally think that none gives us the sense of completion. If getting a PhD is our final goal in life, what's next after we get there?

So, let us look back at the manual written by our Creator:

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ

I have only created Jinns and men, that they may serve Me.
(Qur'an 51:56)

This is our purpose of life. Sadly, many of us limits ibadah to the time we spent on the prayers' mat, or reading the Qur'an. Those are ibadah all right, but ibadah isn't just a certain time in life, but it's life itself. Working, sleeping, taking meals, getting to know people, spending time with friends - all these are also supposed to be ibadah.

There were quite a number of talks I've attended where people would always reiterate just how little time we spend on prayers, on reading the Qur'an as compared to spending time with friends or working or studying. It's almost like those are the only things we do that will earn us good deeds. Once we've folded our prayers mat and put away our telekung, it's like we're in another world. Which is of course, the wrong outlook.

The downside to this "distinction" is that we are subconciously being secular. We may not dare to shorten our Subuh prayers into just one rakaat, but we dare to cut class or cut our working hours (be it coming late, leaving early, or too much "coffee break"). We dare to talk bad things about people. We dare to break promises. We could care less about studying or doing our best in everything we do. We cut queues, we shout at people, we plagiarize, we lie. And the list goes on.

So, today let's just ask ourselves: Just how far had we made our life an ibadah? I must especially remind myself and ask myself this question again and again and again. Are we really serving our purpose of life? Or maybe are we just a part of the herd of goats?