JODOH

Our time has finally arrived. What I meant was it is time for us to start having our eldest child wedded.

For the past one month or two, I received quite a few Wedding Invitation cards from classmates. Their sons or daughters were getting married.

Wedding Invitation cards that I had received were from Hamidin, Ramli, Nasaruddin, Zainuddin..

The latest was from Sharifah Aminah, my ex-classmate when we were in standard six, way back in 1966. Her second daughter is getting married on 7 November.

What about ours? Well, we hope and pray that it will be pretty soon. It is quite difficult to say really. It depends a lot on what we call jodoh. When it comes, it will not wait, not even for a day, but when it is not, it is not.

Once I heard her complained (to herself and us): "I won't have to carry this tv set if ma and aboh had a son-in-law!" that was when she had to carry a 15 kg tv set up to the third floor.

This thing called jodoh is very difficult to explain. There seem to be no correlation between how one looks and how fast jodoh comes. All it takes is the right chemistry, or rather hormonal and pheromonal interactions between them two.

Sometimes it takes only a first sight, then everything goes on smoothly to the wedding day.

But when there is no jodoh, the couple will not be married even after a long engagement period.

Once I asked her candidly: "Are you asking us to loook for your jodoh?"

Here was what she said: "Well, I'm still not that desperate, but in Islam it is the responsibility of parents to find a good jodoh for their children."

There she said it all. She was right. It is up to us parents to find suitable jodoh for our children, if they still have not. Many ladies are still unmarried beyond the normal marriage ages when parents leave this responsibility entirely onto their children's shoulders, I think.

But, looking for a jodoh is not like searching for a missing friend. It is difficult, to say the least. It is also not an arranged marriage. We just help to meet them two, but the decision whether to get married or not still depends on them!

One's jodoh is somewhere out there. It is already written in azali, just like like when will we be born or passed away. We're asked to look for it and not just sit around and hope for it to come to our lap.

But, there is a big but here. The way we look for it should follow the teachings of Islam, should practise all the ways our religion teaches us. We have our dignity and self esteem.

We pray that all our children will find their jodohs in good time. A jodoh that will help them to find happiness and prsoperity both in this world and hereafter!

AMIN