I Daresay, I Am Not Amused

Monday 1st August 2005

I found something very horrible at someone else's blog page. A blog page belonging to someone I do not even really know, someone I have not even met. This person I do not know has a tagbox and was tagged by someone I, unfortunately, happen to know. The tags were probably disguised as a form of gossip for the owner of the blog but it is also to let me know, she's got a little bit of dirt on me.

And now I am very, very sad by these bitter tags for they refer to , of all things, the happiest day of my life. I thought all that brouhaha was over.

D****H*****31.07.2005 07.39.26
Aku ader crita best best.. kau nak kawin kan ***?? haha..ikut sumone's footsteps..minta loan from bank..muahahahha.

D****H*****31.07.2005 07.40.18
then kau buat at wedding dekat hotel 6* for three days and three nights..hahahha..hantaran power power..
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Here I deleted some replies from certain other taggers, who are entitled to their own, non-destructive, non-scandalous opinions that did not concern me at all.
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D****H*****l31.07.2005 19.08.18
u are rite ******..tapi ader org buat wdding sampai loan bank just to menunjuk..dah tu cakap besar..now pekung terbuka..malu sendiri.biar small weding. bawa blk ker atas kubur ke, janji hidup after kawin senang

D****H*****31.07.2005 19.10.02
tak gila nak bayar hutang..jgn sampai baru kawin dua hari kena kerja cause nak carik duit bayar hutang.heh! buat apa menunjuk tapi tong kosong. Chet!As long as we're happy apa nak kira where the wedding is held

You see, I can take hate tags by anyone. Even cowardly hate tags that hide behind pseudonyms like Anonymous or tags that hide in someone else's blog, like the above.

But these tags now enter a whole new battlefield. These things insult Azim, someone who has not done anyone here within this blogging vicinity or maybe beyond, any wrong. My husband, with his kind and gentle heart. My husband, who hates any kind of discourse or violence. He only likes to watch them in the movies. My husband, who always tells me to quell my anger and let things go. My Azim.

No, I can't let this go.

Now, before I thoughtfully typed out this post, I have consulted and sought the advice of a few people whose opinions I trust. I need to react but I don't want to be too cruel. The people I spoke to, they were indignant at her gall but a few of them told me to ignore this person's very heartless taunts and told me to repel the need to explain myself to anyone, for whatever this person airs about me, I really don't have to bother because I have better things to do. Like working my ass of to pay off my alleged wedding loan,perhaps? A few of them told me to **** her till kingdom come. Heh.

But all I want to do is dam the flood before I hurt myself should I accidentally read such things from her again. This is getting much, much too far. I don't care anymore. I don't want to be nice anymore.

If you're so keen to want to gain insight into our finances and how we paid for the wedding, why didn't you ask me? Oh...don't tell me you didn't even have to ask her, she just told you voluntarily?! C'mon...you mean to say this little piece of juicy nugget about my supposed wedding loan just fell out of her mouth sporadically while both of you were talking about a whole other topic, say, about dangly earrings?

Wow..you really should work for the CIA. Information just comes rushing at you, wagging their little radar tails. Interrogating Al-Qaeda suspects would be as stressful as an afternoon nap in the sunshine.

And who's to say she's a reliable source anyway? I didn't know I had her services as my financial analyst. I don't even remember showing her our account activity printouts and financial status spreadsheets! Again I say, as I did in those SMS-es I sent you to make peace, you just want to create reasons to make me look bad.

Well, darling, if you really must know, I did take a loan. In fact, between Azim and I, we have four monthly repayments, deducted directly from our salary on the 5th of every month. Four loans, mind you.Namely, one for the Porsche, one for the Murano and two for our houses. Two meaning I pay half so I take one loan from my bank and Azim, likewise. That is a heavily summarized version of our current financial health. No, we're not paying through our noses. Maybe because it's just him and me now, no kids yet.Or maybe because we eat very, very little and wear very, very little clothes and usually prefer to go barefoot. Heh.

Okay..okay specifics? Well, RasAlKhaimah's RAKBank services the Murano loan.Tamweel provided the money for our home downpayments and I use Mashreqbank to service the load to pay Tamweel and Azim uses HSBC to pay for his half of the Tamweel and for his Porsche. Yeah we do get a slight headache sometimes thinking about it but Alhadullilah, we can handle them ay-okay.

Oh wait...you were patronizing me about my wedding loan, right? Oh..ok.

Sorry to burst your bubble, sweetie but we didn't have to take a loan for that. We did have money saved from a year of flying relentlessly and Azim did sell his share of Raku before he came to Dubai with me. We could have taken a loan though and we almost did but we didn't because after much calculating, it was not worth it. Interest rates for small loans are pointlessly high tau here in Dubai! We needed to take bigger loans for our homes and it just will not do to take a small one for the wedding just so that we could have all our savings intact. My dear, that is false economy. It's like knowing you have a boat outside your house with holes. The boat can take you a good distance during a flood but it will finally sink. You should know that, you are after all, a businesswoman, no?

So anyway, for the information of everyone interested especially brides-to-be and one bride-basi, it was not as though financial planning for our Ritz wedding was smooth all the way.Remember my wedding insanity? We had a budget (yes we did!) but what we wanted for our wedding worked very well within the budget, after much negotiations with our wedding planners and after drawing up our guest list. For those who are considering a hotel wedding, when you pay, say, a nett amount of $99 per head for a minimum of 150 heads, it incorporates the usage of the venue, the decoration, the cutlery, the banquet staff and almost everything else you see in a hotel wedding. Even the bridal suite. For ours, we wanted the biggest suite, the Ritz-Carlton suite so that more people can witness our solemnization so all we did was pay the upgrade difference of around $3000. If you look at it carefully, a bawah-block lunch and dinner reception for a thousand or more people would also be just as costly and I heard that to rent a Community Club hall would knock back at least ten grand. Furthermore, our wedding is combined effort of both of us and even then, we still did not have 1000 people to invite. Thus, there was no sebelah pengantin lelaki or sebelah pengantin perempuan so the cost of a full Malay wedding was reduced by half (also coz we really had no time!!). So was it just the Ritz name that pissed people off? Or was it just me?

Anyway, my bridal suite decor was tastefully done by, I think you all know her by now, Kak Norita of Khaj Wedding Services, who is my relative-in-law and who did not charge me an exhorbitant price for the work of her magic wand. If you must know, she is my grandaunty's daughter-in-law. Khaj in the Khaj wedding services refers to my grandaunty, Nek Lijah. Go figure. Yeap, it helps to have talented relatives but no freeloaders please.

Officially our guest list showed 200 and we signed a contract for a catered buffet dinner of 250. Tiny amount, isn't it, for a Malay wedding? Initially I opted for the ballroom but it was already booked for that night (my wedding guests would remember a bunch of Mat Salleh's streaming out from the ballroom entrance, a little bit tipsy from their company's Dinner n Dance) and so I opted for Ritz's Snappers Poolside. I'm glad I did. It gave the whole affair a relaxed feel, if you were there. Were you?

Anyway, honest to goodness, we did not have a Ritz wedding to menunjuk. Menunjuk apa? Menunjuk that we're so filthy rich from working as mere cabin crew? We get paid well, Alhamdullilah but we're not filthy rich yet. Menunjuk that I was having my wedding at a 6* hotel? There are a million couples in the world who are having bigger, fatter hotel weddings. If I was having it at the Burj Al Arab, then I'd rub it in your face. Menunjuk that our families are all actually Mafioso with swelling bank accounts filled with dirty money? My nenek is a little bit on the Mafia side in terms of her gangster tendencies but the rest of my family members don't have bank balances that rival the blinging Gottis yet. Really, siapa yang "cakap besar" nie? Did I go around shoving my wedding in your face? Did I really? When? Where?

Well, if you must know and I must tell you because I am so proud of this fact. We had the Ritz wedding for its significance. Ritz-Carlton is the place we first met and where we had our first hot-chocolate date before we went to Adam Road for the remainder of the first-date. And we were getting married on our birthdays. Left-right-center significance,baby! Now, isn't that an all-rounder whammo or what?! I'm sure if I had met Azim at that dodgy place beside the sewage tank center, I'd have gotten married there, with nose clips for everyone and a high toxic rate of air freshener fumes. Yes, we are suckers for all that is significant.

And honest to goodness, it looked like a big fat Ritz wedding but it was intended as a small affair, officially only inviting 250 guests. At the end of the night, 500 guests turned up, very few went home early and many stayed late. Alhamdullilah, all were well-fed and all took home berkats. It recently occured to me, as I viewed a shaky video taken by one of Azim's friends, that the atmosphere was as cheery as a bawah-block wedding and I was very glad it was like that. It meant people were happy and relaxed within an environment one would usually consider as stiff and posh.

And while I'm at it, some people(not you, of course!) referred to my wedding as glitzy. If it was, it was all with the help of Maria J who took the reins from me just five days before my big day. I didn't ask her for anything nor did I instruct to bring on the bling. Five days . What you see in my pictures, of Malay dancers, confetti, speeches and bling-bling were all thought up in five days whereas prior to that I really had nothing. She wanted my wedding to be spectacular. She wanted the bling. She brought the bling. Without her, it would have been quite a quiet buffet affair, with only jazz music playing in the background, as how I intended it to be.

Admittedly, Azim and I both maxed out all our credit cards to pay for all the little extras we had to come up with at the last minute, for some of the dulang gifts and the difference for the big suite I mentioned earlier. I guess that is a form of a loan from our credit card companies. Okay now...see...are you happy, my dear? I DID have a loan, of sorts! However, thank God for this year's bonus, which came timely in May and went swiftly into clearing the dirty mess in our credit card balances.

Oh wait, did you also say I had to rush home two days after my wedding to work to earn money to pay off my loan? Pathetic, isn't it.?Kesian kan?!

But more than having to work to earn money (which is the sustenance of the modern world now, no?), I had to rush home because we were not granted anymore leave days after the 22nd of April and my roster -my rock, solid roster- that Scheduling mati-mati tak nak alter, indicated a flight I had to do or die. Already I gave away my Paris to fly back to Singapore earlier. I can't have a "refused to do flight due to wedding night shag exhaustion" noted in my personal records now, can I? I do love my job, you know.

This is why leave should always be planned at least ten years in advance so the company has no excuse to say no. Staying a few thousand nautical miles away from your wedding venue sets you at a disadvantage to achieve perfect timing for such big events so if you're in the situation like I was in, please, plan your wedding leave ten years in advance. It doesn't matter whether or not you have someone to marry. Just do it.

Above all else, whether or not I took a loan, whether or not I had a Ritz wedding or whether or not I even actually paid for this wedding should not matter to you or anyone and should not be fodder for your fire. I believe I did not dangle my Ritz wedding in front of people for sheer pompous posterity. I was as excited as any bride would be about her wedding and it just so happens that I was to have mine at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore, for reasons clearly stated. Maybe the frequent bursts of excitement, the frequent penned-down frenzy and the frequent references, unavoidably, to the reputable venue was misinterpreted as a blatant attempt at flaunting the fluff. But I never, ever intended to "cakap besar" nor did I have a "pekung" to "terbuka", whatever that means. Nor was I pretending humilty. I do think modesty is sometimes hypocrisy anyway.

I was just plain excited to get married to Azim at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore.

Now, I have been married for more than three months. My alleged big, fat Ritz wedding is now yesterday's daun bawang newspaper wrapping, though to me it was the most beautiful and wonderful day of my life. I don't mind if people have forgotten it yet I am touched if people remember it. The most important thing of all is that it was the day Azim and I worked hard for and it would be the day we would cherish for the rest of our lives. Proudly, I say, with or without a loan, Azim and I paid for our own wedding with hardly any financial help from our families, who are, right now battling their own battles in this increasingly expensive world. Azim's parents to bring up his two younger brothers. My mother, to bring up my own little (or not so little) sister, now without my father around at all.

And I am very sad now because I realize people fill their hearts with so much venom for no real reason, they seek to find the worst possible things about you and intentionally store the information, without your verification on the validity of the truth. Well, I also kaypo pasal orang sometimes and I do ask about stuff for the sheer joy of mengeypoh but the push comes to shove when people gleefully air whatever dirty little piece of panty they got their talons on for all to see. I believe I too have scores of other people's dirty panties but you don't really see them up here, do you?

At the brunt of it all, my wedding is still the topic of so much disgust in a certain person. A few months on did not help in soothing the disgust this person has towards my big day at that "big" place. Or maybe its just her hatred for me. I am not sure about that yet.

What is it that you want from me?

Tell me to my face please.

Cower not.

I don't usually bite.


DISCLAIMER:
*Before anyone asks kenapa Raihan terasa that this person is referring to her, I'll cover this loophole. I do not have to be a genius to know this person is talking about me. I may not be the only one who had a wedding at a 6* hotel recently but I know I am the only one this person despises to the core, for reasons only fathomable to herself. So yes, Raihan terasa because I know this ammo's aimed at me,baby!

*And if anyone wants to wax lyrical freedom of speech, law and order and judicial systems, I am going to tell you to stick it where the sun don't shine. If you want to dictate anyone's freedom of speeh, then it's anyone's right so it is also mine. And if you want to cite the strong arm of the law, peace and justice then why not cite religious implications also and go the full monty with your holier(and mightier)-than-thou mantras, threats and contract killing?

*And if anyone thinks this is another one of Raihan's seized chances to show-off, please know that I don't like to show-off last season's Alexandra McQueen's peony dress nor the sinful Ugg boots by Ugg so I would hardly enjoy "bragging" about my very basi three-months-ago wedding. This is just a dominal effect of someone's tak-puas-hati face trap.

*And to everyone in the whole-wide-world who is going to get married, HAVE YOUR WEDDING ANY BLOODY WHERE YOU WANT but make sure it's the place YOU want that will make YOU happy,now and later. Big or small. Expensive or not. I read in one of the British bridal magazines that almost always, there is a more affordable alternative. And if you have to, take a loan. No shame in that. With clever financing, it'll be okay. I know someone who could pay for his whole wedding but he took a $5000 loan to buy his wife her wedding ring and her own wedding outfit. And now, 15 years on, they are doing just fine. To hell with bad-mouthers, snide-sniggers and black, black hearts.

*And to everyone else, always find that piece of peace in your hearts, no matter how much bile you can feel building up in your throat. It's not worth it to hate. As religiously-inept as I may be, I do believe our religion encourages us to forgive for even He, considering all the crap we are doing in this world, is forgiving.