AUG 27 — Over the past decade that I have been abroad, as far as I can remember I have only experienced Ramadan three times in Malaysia, and at that, barely a few days.

Some undoubtedly preceded celebrating Aidilfitri with my family in Selangor, although in 2009 I started fasting in KL and celebrated Aidilfitri in the UK, and last year I flew in smack dab into rendang-making having taken a flight that landed on Raya eve.

Most years it is work that keeps me away — even as a graduate student I held a position as a teaching assistant which was part of my funding deal and when Ramadan and Aidilfitri fell during term time, as it often did in the mid-2000s, you are left with little choice. Still, some nice memories from those times too, as I recall many a time some of my Muslim students quietly putting dates or sweets on my table as I lectured as sunset became imminent.

If I were to really reflect on my personal Ramadan experiences over the last 25 odd years, there have indeed been quite a mix. During my teenage years I fasted with a few hundred other girls away at boarding school — where the dinner menu was not to one’s personal dictation — and there was hardly ever a time when we had access to pasar ramadan. Our only saving grace in those days were weekends when friends who had family nearby would come over, bringing either various kueh from home or the pasar, or a nice spread to be shared in our small groups.

The centrality of pasar ramadan in our lives as Malaysians — these days fondly abbreviated to param (a moniker I associate with a 1980s Malaysian comedian) — can no longer be denied. Recently, an old university colleague now working and living in Pakistan noted that compelling images of Ramadan worldwide were depicted on a website. While images of breathtaking mosques and the nightly terawih prayers were main features of many Muslim countries, when it came to Malaysia — that’s right, we had images of the pasar ramadan.

“Not unique to Malaysia,” commented a colleague of mine who is Egyptian, who makes it a point to return home for Ramadan as often as she can. In Cairo she grew up in similar surroundings, with bazaars and markets a hive of activity and festivity.

As sunset approached, she told me, people would literally grab strangers off the streets to get them to break their fast with them: Charity is highly held during the holy month. In the aftermath of the uprisings in Egypt last spring and the current jostles for power, I hope she managed to still experience a similar Ramadan this year.

Unlike my colleague, instead of taking the opportunity to fast back home this summer, I opted to stay behind despite the intimidating thought of having to fast for 17 hours. This was not my first time, mind — I learnt to fast when I was nine and living in the UK during the last time we experienced summer fasts in the northern hemisphere. (For good measure I should note that never once did my parents force me to fast — rather I did so at my own personal insistence despite their asking me to only do half-days). Back then there was an easy solution to deal with the fatigue and tiredness — I would just sleep, endlessly. As an adult, this was not quite an option: I had a day job to get to, for starters!

Fasting is... different in a country without a Muslim majority. For starters, a lot of people do not care if you fast or not, and throughout the years I have learnt that when offered coffee or tea during a meeting, it was easier to just decline than to explain the “voluntary” abstention from food, drink and sex during daylight hours. You are pretty much your own guide, and the extent to which you observe fasting during the day and prayers during the night is limited only by your conscience.

There is no hearse here to truck you around should you be “caught” eating in public during the day, and no public service announcements reminding you not to hug random uncles at the market or wear sleeveless tees while looking for food.

But nevertheless, even when far from home, a sense of community continues to be preserved. We often have potluck parties to mark the breaking of the fast during weekends with other members of our small Malaysian community here, and as in years past, group Quran recitation sessions — the tadarus — are carried out nightly via the medium of Skype voice conferencing: As nightfall is late and short, this was a much more convenient way to having to travel to and fro at almost midnight.

I’ve also been spending this year’s Ramadan — which fell in August, the quietest time of the academic year — to reflect on recent happenings during this holy month. And there was a lot to go by, too. It seemed like the food I was going without during the day was being compensated by an abundance of food for thought — both in Malaysia and globally. If anything, we have been “blessed” with points to ponder.

To start off with, this summer saw East Africa suffering its worst famine in decades, reminding us to be thankful for what we have but more so to spare a penny for those in much more need than us. In the first few days of Ramadan the controversy of the 8TV PSA adverts became the talk of my Twitter feed, and, with it, reflections and a reminder that tolerance and sensitivity is a two-way street.

The London riots which broke out in early Ramadan — prompting the cheekier among Muslims to outright declare that this was one event they couldn’t be blamed for given that they are too tired during the day and too busy eating during the night — reminded me about the subsections of society and the underclass that we seem to forget as our own wings afford us to soar higher. And back home, the controversy over the Jais church raid brought home an uncomfortable truth about the state of our zakat affairs.

It’s not just about society, though. Of late Ramadan to me has become something personal; a two-way relationship between me and God. For the most part, whether I make the most of Ramadan with nightly prayers and observations of charity or not is something private: a unique, personal spiritual journey that is mine alone. I find that strangely rewarding and liberating.

Salam Aidilfitri to friends, family and readers of this column, and Happy Merdeka Malaysia. We’re still young and dashing at 54.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.