Posh Spice. Rempah Raya.

Friday 21st September 2007

This pap-shot of the VB and the VB's Baby going for dinner recently at some swish LA food pad has everything that I like inside it.



Let's dissect.

Vicky Beckham herself? Check. With her classic Pob bob (which I will never resort to despite it being SUCH a fab style coz EVERYONE now has a carbon-copy bob cut!)? Check. With her equally classic and surely feigned pinched-yet-slighly-terperanjat-at-the-amount-of-attention-she's-getting look? Check. Lovely tan in a shade of gold I can never darken to coz I will just turn a crappy shade of brown? Check. In cute and quirky dress? Check. In one of my favourite shades of green? Check. With cute Hermes Kelly Bag (one of her gazillion arm blings from Hermes!)? Check. In another one of my favourite shades of green? Check. Holding hand of cute husband? Check. In a shirt of one of my favourite shades of blue? Check. And a pullover of a lovely shade of purple? Check.

It's all about colours, I know. I'm obsessed. And now for the stupid, mundane, trivial and very very thickheaded question of the month:-

What colour for this year's Raya?

Yes, I know, such a silly thing to ponder over when it's only been a week since the start of Ramadhan and when there are more pressing matters in the outbox but I can't help it, I bimbo like that. This bimbotic quest for the right colour...it's inherent and indispensable. Getting married has made this soalan cepu emas even more critical, as the call for affiliation via colour uniformity becomes more urgent. Why? So that in those festive crowds in packed homes that usually come with most Raya gatherings, people would immediately know who you're with. I think.

Actually, I don't know why it's so important, seeing that the people who will be seeing us will be people who are likely to have attended our wedding or have at least been informed that we're hitched. So even if in someone's house, I'm taking a crap in the bathroom and Azim's talking to a bunch of once-a-year relatives in the living room, people will know that this is Azim and his wife is Raihan or rather, that thing they smell. And they know who we are with NOT because we're both wearing matching colours but because...uh....people just know lah....word tends to get around fast in The Makcik Network, wedding invite or not. Furthermore, clearly, we will not be popping into any random complete stranger's home during Raya so it's safe to assume everyone will know which Familia we belong to (not like we have much of a Familia of our own to lug around..it's just him and me currently and of course, the ones we were born into!) without us having to actually be clad in matching palettes. And even if we do get a screw loose while stuffing our mouths with Raya fare and go waltzing into every other Malay home we pass by, wouldn't a name tag suffice? Or an "I'm with him/her" T-shirt pulled over our baju? Or a simple "Nie suami/isteri saya!", primitive but effective?

No? Too simple? Still bent on the need to match? No problem. Honestly. For as I look back on my last two years of Raya pictures where I matched my husband (ooooh...how precious!), I must admit, this matching thing was easy on the eyes. And as I recall, it was also nice to see families pounding the pavements together during Hari Raya, purposefully striding to various relatives' houses, in carefully orchestrated matching baju-baju, either cut from the same cloth (pun intended!) or in various shades of that same colour. It's pleasing to witness tradition like this, where the family is united by a mere choice of colour. This whole festive fashion parade just makes Hari Raya complete, don't you think? Albeit only on the superficial level, it just....looks nice. So whatever evasive unclear reason that might have started this tradition, I'm quite settled with the sole purpose of aesthetic value. So let the search begin.

And I do wonder now, how I started with Victoria Beckham and ended with Hari Raya traditions when the twain shalt never meet.