Penawar Kerimasan

Dalam keadaan rumah tunggang-langgang kerana operasi cat-mengecat, dengan scaffolding di tengah rumah, dan barang-barang lemari berserabut di atas meja dan lantai, sejuk hati ini apabila terlihat salah-seorang ahli pasukan empat sekawan Mat Bangla yang bernama Abdurrahman, sebelum berus mencecah dinding mengucap Basmallah dengan penuh khusyu'.

Sebelum itu memang saya terfikir sampai bilalah saya harus bertahan dengan keadaan rumah sebegini serta kebisingan celoteh team yang amat bersemangat.

Lalu memujuk diri dengan mengharapkan sesuatu yang baik walaupun kecil, dari Yang Maha Adil... kerana berpeluang membantu hamba-hambanya yang mencari rezeki.

Kebetulan saya sedang membelek-belek online Al-Quran dan rasa tersentuh pula dengan sebahagian ayat 195 Surah Al-'Imran (kononnya mengulangi pelajaran di usrah malam tadi).

"(195) And thus does their Sustainer answer their prayer: "I shall not lose sight of the labour of any of you who labours [in My way], be it man or woman: each of you is an issue of the other...."  ~ Muhammad Asad's translation.

(195) Maka Tuhan mereka perkenankan doa mereka (dengan firmanNya): "Sesungguhnya Aku tidak akan sia-siakan amal orang-orang yang beramal dari kalangan kamu, sama ada lelaki atau perempuan, (kerana) setengah kamu (adalah keturunan) dari setengahnya yang lain;

Subhanallah...

Malam tadi saya tertarik dengan ayat 190 dan 191:

(190) Verily, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the succession of night and day, there are indeed messages for all who are endowed with insight,

191) [and] who remember God when they stand, and when they sit, and when they lie down to sleep,
and [thus] reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth: "O our Sustainer! Thou hast not created [aught of] this without meaning and purpose. Limitless art Thou in Thy glory! Keep us safe, then, from suffering through fire!

Ustaz menerangkan yang "endowed with insight" itu lah yang "remember God when they stand, and when they sit, and when they lie down to sleep". Memang sah saya amat berkurangan dengan "power of insight" tersebut, kalau mengikut terjemahan Bahasa Melayunya ialah kurang berakal... ooops sedihnya

(190) Sesungguhnya pada kejadian langit dan bumi, dan pada pertukaran malam dan siang, ada tanda-tanda (kekuasaan, kebijaksanaan, dan keluasan rahmat Allah) bagi orang-orang yang berakal

 (191) (Iaitu) orang-orang yang menyebut dan mengingati Allah semasa mereka berdiri dan duduk dan semasa mereka berbaring mengiring, dan mereka pula memikirkan tentang kejadian langit dan bumi (sambil berkata): "Wahai Tuhan kami! Tidaklah Engkau menjadikan benda-benda ini dengan sia-sia, Maha Suci Engkau, maka peliharalah kami dari azab neraka.

Banyak perkara lagha yang mengisi waktu saya - mana mungkin boleh mencapai "a happy state" tanpa mengingati Yang Rahman Yang Rahim...

Sedang saya membaca ayat terakhir surah, saya teringat seorang rakan yang terlantar sakit.

(200) O you who have attained to faith! Be patient in adversity, and vie in patience with one another, and be ever ready [to do what is right], and remain conscious of God, so that you might attain to a happy state!

Insya Allah beliau sudah melatih diri untuk  "remain conscious of God" "when they stand, and when they sit, and when they lie down to sleep" atau ditidurkan.

Saya juga harus mempunyai kebolehan seperti itu.

Ini baru sahaja menghadapi keadaan rumah yang lintang-pukang seperti dilanda angin puting beliung. Belum lagi ancaman nuklear dan sewaktu dengannya.

Belum lagi di.....    (iishhh.... tak mahu fikirkan lah)

Ya Ampunnn...


Ini juga penawar.

Saturday TV

I accidentally watched some serious TV this morning.

I don't usually watch TV except perhaps the cookery channel or whatever whoever was in control of the remote was watching.

With 3 Banglas upstairs diligently transforming our boring beigy bedrooms into sensuous caves of "Lavender Print" and "Bouquet Orchid", I thought I might as well check out what's cooking on the Asia Food Channel.

That Pinoy chef "whats-his-name" was rolling out some apple strudels. It looks very easy to make and I love apple strudels and always order them for dessert when we "cafe/deli" out.  But then whenever I have apples in the fridge I think it's a crime to cut them up and cook all the vitamins away.

Flipping channels, "Crime and Investigation" caught my attention. It was showing a documentary about 2 kids involved in a  misadventure which started from an internet chatroom.

It was the year 2003 when chatrooms were all the rage. Teenagers (and not-so-teen internet-savvy) were making online friends  and gradually becoming addicted to communicating with one another for very long hours in this mode. (So what's so different with Facebook?)

John was an ordinary 16 year old, an only son of busy parents, who had made friends with 14 year old Mark, also an only child, in a chatroom for kids in Manchester.

Apart from Mark, John was also friendly with Rebecca, a teenage tease who often played on John's imagination and whom John had often arranged to meet in the flesh, but somehow the meetings never materialised.

Eventually Rebecca disappeared from the scene after being virtually killed off by an apparently  concerned Mark. The unassuming John remained friends with Mark and was actually becoming rather fascinated by his online capabilities.

His curiosity was answered when an older lady, Janet, a real-estate agent, made contact with John. It turned out that she was actually an undercover agent for The Crown, on a mission to recruit youngsters to groom them into the service. John's friendship with Mark was what had qualified him to be identified as an apprentice agent.

According to Janet, Mark was one of only two people who had access to an undersea vault which contained state secrets of the UK. The other person was the Queen.

As an apprentice, John's job was to protect Mark. He would be very well compensated financially... and sexually by Janet should he pass his assignments.

Every now and again Janet instructed John through the chats, to accompany Mark when he had to go somewhere like the dentist's or just hanging out, because of how valuable Mark was to the government.

With that kind of incentive, especially the non-financial, John was frequently with Mark after school.

One night Janet came online and said that John was doing very well indeed. His next assignment however was to be a big one - one that he would be paid 300 pounds sterling for in addition to some time with Janet herself.

He was to stab Mark...

The reason why was not revealed, only that he had to do it.

When they were out together that afternoon, John bought a kitchen knife, telling Mark it was for his mother.

Later on as evening approached, in a park somewhere in Manchester John stabbed Mark deeply in the stomach but called for an ambulance soon after.

The police then arrested John who told them everything about Janet and his recruitment into UK's Secret Service, confident that Janet would soon appear to vindicate him of his "crime". But she did not.

Mark had to spend some weeks in ICU recovering from his wound which was within an inch of being a fatal one. John was taken into custody.

Subsequent police analysis of John's computer hard-drives showed that John had been a victim of his own gullibility, believing that he was indeed marked out for a life of spying intrigue in the future. Someone, the police suspected a paedophile, had played on a teenage boy's fantasy.

And that someone, as police later discovered, was... Mark himself.

From his online interactions police investigators found that Mark had assumed about 190 different personas in the chatrooms, including that of Rebecca and Janet.

What gave him away was the regular use of a misspelling in each of his persona: instead of "maybe" he used "myebye".

What was puzzling though was why he had a death wish. This was something the documentary did not dwell upon.

John spent a year in remand before his case was brought to court.

At the end of the trial, John was acquitted. Thankfully the judge regarded the whole episode as something unfortunate to learn from and ruled that both John and Mark were not to see each other again, nor be allowed to be on the internet unsupervised and not to use chatrooms again.

I should think John and Mark are both young adults by now. I wonder how they are doing.

Is Mark instead of John being groomed for undercover duties?

Are they on Facebook? Or perhaps blogging?

Oh, American Idol now on Starworld.