Mertabat vs Murtabak.

The Malays love the word 'mertabat' that they use it often enough until you don't have any idea what it really means. Like Pavlov dogs, each time the word is mentioned I automatically associate it with murtabak making me all hungry inside that I leave a majlis mesra kenal to look for a good murtabak from an honest-to-goodness mamak restaurant in Taman Tun. You should try this murtabak and forget about this complicated concept of mertabat because there is nothing left to mertabat when Utusan Melayu, the last mertabat of the Jawi bastion, went down the dumpster for want of reading and buying audience. And now this grandmaster of a silat that I have very little knowledge of is talking about mertabat which I think is a lot of bull and me being a little emotional over this mertabat issue, overshoot my speech in expressing what a load of empty talks all this mertabat business is. It doesn't please the grandmaster very much that he gives me a look that leaves me thinking, I had better say something that can get this grandmaster really annoyed so he is angry enough to take a shot at me with one of his so-called buah serang to see if it is any good against Lian. All I have to do now is wait for the right moment. And the right moment comes down like a blessing from the sky.

I got my chance when the grandmaster touched on 'mertabatkan' Ugama. You haven't met me but I can be quite kurang ajar when I want to and so I played the part of a kurang ajar dude by cutting short his long-winded speech with, kalau awak kata nak mertabatkan ugama kenapa masa orang taruk babi dalam sosej dan bagi ikan patin makan perut babi tak ada satu pun persatuan silat yang berani hantar bantahan secara resmi mengenai hal ini. Aku rasa tak usalah cakap pasal mertabat kalau tak berani bertindak atau tak tahu pun macammana nak bertindak kerana asyik bercakap macam ahli politik. When you've said something like this in front of a grandmaster with four of his best students sitting around him, you know you are in deep trouble. But I needed to say the truth because I have had it up to my nose with all this hypocrasy and big talks. His students were ready to jump on me but maybe out of respect for the grandmaster they sat there like monkeys. I had no business to stay on another minute and so I stood a convenient distance from the table just in case any of those four monkeys decided to be a hero in front of his grandmaster. Memang betul kata Pok...., awak memang kurang ajar. Yes, that's why I am not interested to learn your silat because your silat is full of tari menari macam pondan.

That got them really angry.
Ha ha.