[NOTE: For the benefit of this blog's international readers (ahem!), English translation to follow, soon]

Terserempak dengan ikan badus. Itulah yang berlaku pada pagi 29 Disember 2006, pagi terakhir saya di kampung. Ketika itu, awal-awal lagi bapa dan ibu turun ke sawah untuk "monusui" atau menabur semula benih padi supaya padi tumbuh sama rata dan tiada ruangan kosong pada sawah.

Melihat mereka bekerja, tergerak hati untuk turut sama. Lagipun sudah lama benar tidak merasai pengalaman di sawah. Seronok rasanya menabur padi. Teringat masa kecil.

Tidak pasti sebenarnya siapa terserempak siapa. Kami terserempak ikan atau ikan terserempak kami.


Apapun, rasanya tentu ikan tu terkejut beruk (hmmm...macam mana translate ni?) melihat kehadiran manusia di tengah-tengah sawah.

Ia cuba menggelongsor antara lumpur untuk melarikan diri tetapi nampaknya, sampai di situlah sahaja riwayatnya.

TRANSLATION: A close encounter with a snakehead fish.. That was precisely what happened on the morning of December 29, 2006, my final day in the village. That Friday morning, my old folks had gone to the paddy field just after sunrise to "monusui" or to scatter rice seedlings over previously planted plots so that the paddy grow in constant density.

Seeing them working, I joined them on the field. It's has been so long since I last worked on a paddy field and I enjoyed every moment of it. Reminds me of my childhood.

I can't say really who encountered who. Was it us who encountered the fish or was it the fish who encountered us.

In any case, I am pretty sure the fish was "terkejut beruked" (shocked, mouth agape like a surprised monkey) upon seeing us in the middle of the paddy field.

It tried to slide away in the mud but couldn't go far. And that was the day the life of the snakehead fish ended.