It was 7.30 in the morning, I was having my usual ‘jogging’ activity at my favourite spot – the track in the vicinity of Masjid Tengku Tengah Zaharah. We locals called it Masjid Terapung or reffered to as Floating Mosque. Its one of the icons of Islam in the state.
Masjid Tengku Tengah Zaharah(The Floating Mosque)
Being a weekday there were not many joggers around except for a few. Going by theirs attires they were the jemaah who I thought decides to stay back for their briskwalking round the track.
The track was wet due to last night downfall. I decided not to continue but instead make a detour down the beach. Yes during the monsoon most coastal part of K.Terengganu were full of debris. You could see stretches of all kinds of everything,, uprooted trees, plastic bottles, diaphers tangling with the branches along the coastline. These deposits were pushed ashore from the ulu areas by the gushing waves.
Debris piling the coastline
Terengganu Equestrian Resort(TER) is in the background.
The sandy beach seen here is once a anglers haven with fishes like Ikan Kakap Merah, (Red Snapper)Kuku etc ...now its fill with sand brought by the gushing waves over the years. Those who frequent the place will testify to that.
While combing the beach I stumble upon a few buah gomok nicely snug among the debris. Awang Goneng describes in his GUIT’ ‘’ as the flat shelled , tough and dark as ebony .
I took it home and had a plan in mind. I wanted to bores holes in them and takes out the kernels then fill it with molten lead reminiscent of what we did when we were kid or liken to what Awang Goneng did when he took it home and bored holes in them and kept them on an ant's colony. Once the ants have had their feast and left the gomok shell light and hollow, the skilled in this gomokcraft took them home to fill with molten lead, its shell to love and polish with spit and Kiwi, then bandied about as gleaming objects of desire. The weighted gomok were used as hurling objects in our games, or smashed against rival gomoks as children do with conkers in other parts of the world.’’
Buah Gomok Snugging among the debris
....I took it home and had a plan in mind. ..
So folks, to those who doesn’t know how a buah gomok or buah ipir looks like, its my pleasure here to show you some images of them which I salvage from the debris.