The Ramadan has come, and I'm a Hibernating Bear

The Fasting Month, Ramadhan, is here and as a Muslim, I’m doing what most Muslims do during the fasting month. No, not eat in some secluded area afraid I’ll be spotted eating. But I’ve been fasting. Yes, not eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset. If you think that I’m going to connect something about motoring to Fasting with an introduction like this you are wrong. I don’t have the energy, due to a lack of normal food and water intake, the processing power in my grey matter has slowed down to a crawl. The logic of move less and to think less equals to no calories but the bare minimum to be burnt. So I get to survive another fasting day. I’m like a hibernating bear, or a zombie depending on your point of view.

Actually it’s not as bad as it sounds this fasting. You actually get to lose some of those pounds from the waist that seems to stick like super glue no matter what you do once you hit a certain age. Usually I get to lose about 2 to 3 kilograms of what ever it is you lose every fasting month. It’s like a reward for the ‘suffering’ you have to go through; aside from the reward that Hari Raya Aidilfitri happens at the end of it.

Now the main problem of motoring in the city during Ramadhan is the traffic in the evenings. Somehow everyone has decided to reach home or wherever they intend to go by 7.00pm. They all want to leave their offices, drive to the nearest Ramadhan food market or pasar Ramadhan as we call it (this is where lots of individuals temporarily open shop and sell all sorts of pastries, fried food and so forth throughout the month), proceed to buy almost every sort of tart or fried chicken they can see and then fight their way back to their homes and families.

I’ve got a secret to share. I’ve stopped frequenting these Ramadan food thingies. It is plain to see that most who open up shop don’t bloody know how to actually cook. Almost nothing there tastes good as they’re mostly cooking for mega profit. Those who buy from a bad stall rarely frequent it again but there’s so many people everyday that they’ll make millions during their month of selling chicken feed food. Every one of the stalls will make millions. Furthermore, if you’d ever notice the prices, they are even more expensive than some ‘mamak’ restaurants, especially if you buy those nasi tomato, nasi minyak etc. They slaughter you silly. The main problem is when most people fast, they tend to be hungry and then when they see a large selection of rubbish, I mean food, they wish to buy everything. Let me give you a tip for Ramadan food market shopping. Go there only once every fasting month and then don’t bother.

The second issue I have with these food markets is that Muslims suddenly become very unIslamic in their parking. Why I say that is because they double park, triple park and obstruct all traffic just because their stomach is growling. This isn’t the purpose for fasting. Nothing about tolerance and good behaviour is said at a pasar Ramadan as it’s every man and his stomach for themselves. I suppose since they are fasting, they can’t walk 10 steps without collapsing, and so they block the whole road for a bag of ridiculously bad food. If the food were good in the first place, those people that you blocked wouldn’t have mind. It’s pathetic.

I seriously suggest those driving home to just go home straight or go to the nearest restaurant rather than frequent places like these. And if you do get home straight from work, I believe that when I travel from Ampang to Petaling Jaya everyday I won’t have to suffer so much as there may be less traffic on the road. And it looks like I have connected this article to something about motoring after all.