Heaven knows

So my mom had this dream a few weeks ago in which her late mom, my grandma, the one who took care of me till I was nine, was craving for nasi briyani up there in Heaven.

Who did she call?

The Calamity Man of course, the in-house all things Halal representative.

Unfortunately I had a hard time trying to work my schedule out what with the darn conversion thingy at the foodcourt, my working on the Gung Ho Ventures website, the job-search and all, until today.

Even that was hard coz my mom and I were at loggerheads on how things should be done.

I wanted to just get the nasi briyani from my foodcourt, bring them to the mosque, get on with the special prayers and go back to work.

My mom wanted to cook the nasi briyani herself, then I go pick them up and go to the mosque nearest to her home and out of nowhere just ask the Imam to conduct the special prayers.

I was uneasy with her plan outrightly because for me, time is of the essence and I had to find an efficient solution to achieve maximum results at the shortest possible time. Besides, I was very comfortable at my own mosque. I know all the people there and they all know that I'm a novice Muslim so I have nothing to be embarassed about.

But after two weeks we managed to come to a compromise.

She had to cook the nasi briyani herself so I let her. With Liana's help I arranged for a courier to fetch the 15 packets of nasi briyani this afternoon from Yishun and send them over to me at Taman Jurong. I had already arranged with the mosque about the logistics two days ago.

I have to be honest. This was the first time I was doing something like this and I was lost in translation amidst all the Arabic verses involved. My eyes were fixed on the floor. I only knew two verses! But I felt ok. The folks at the mosque knew I was a novice having only learned how to pray last year at the Muslim Converts' Association so they told me beforehand to take it easy and just flow with the go.

Translated into English, the prayers mean "prayers of delivery". From what I gather, what happens is that food that is meant to be "delivered" to the recipient in Heaven is prepared in an amount enough to feed all those involved in the prayers itself here on Earth. After the prayers, the food is then distributed to all involved and that signifies the food has been "received" by the recipient in Heaven.

Ya know, I was touched. I was so touched to see all those folks coming around to help little 'ol green horn me out. The staff at the mosque was there, strangers who just happened to be there were there in the circle we formed, my building's cleaners were there... .

I just had to cry. It was beautiful to be touched like that. Thank God they didn't see me coz they all had their eyes closed in deep concentration. But I looked around and I was happy to see all of them there. My grandma, grandpa and gang should be happily eating the nasi briyani then.

After the prayers, which we did right after Asar just now, we all split the bounty and went on our ways. I was very grateful. I shook everyone's hands and thank everyone personally. I didn't even take my share of the bounty coz there wasn't enough to go around but everyone had a packet of nasi briyani in the end so no problem. I could always drop by my mom's and have mine served piping hot or heck it, I work in a dang foodcourt anyway!

It was worth it.