My nephew has just finished reciting Surah Al Fatihah (the first Surah in the Quran) to us. Admittedly, it is a very mangled recital but he is only four years old. He beams at us when he is done, and leaves his aunts my youngest sister and I in fits. He then proceeds to demonstrate prayers to us, which has us laughing again because of the way he shouts, "La Wa Ba! La Wa Ba!"

In the one week at a private Islamic kindergarden his mother (my second sister) enrolled him in this year, he has learned to recognise Arabic alphabets. After school, he attends Kumon classes. In time to come, my sister hopes that he'll take up swimming, taekwondo, literature, helicopter flying and probably gourmet cooking my sister is the kiasu mother from Kuala Terengganu. She is praying that when he enters the local primary school, he would have memorised the Yaasin, because she wants him to have secular Malaysian education, though this may change, depending on finances. Farhan's going to be a mercurial Malaysian by the time he's 10, he would have had the best of Western and Islamic education.

We, the sisters, are very happy, that we are not Liza's children. In our books, this constitutes to child abuse.

Country club

My mother makes my nephew repeat his performance. I think back to the time when going for mengaji classes was simpler. I know nostalgia is not appreciated these days, but when I see young Malaysian kids attending religious classes in the city, I feel sad. It's all about competition now attending the best, which is usually private and expensive, Islamic schools.

It's quite ironic really. If before, my friends sent pre-schoolers to kindergartens that had the Who's Who's offspring there (some of my friends are equally ambitious), my sister and her peers look at Islamic schools in an almost similar way. They have to be international. The teachers have to speak good English. Classes are conducted in English and Arabic. The parents have to be professionals. Quite a number of the young mothers that send their children to the same school Farhan is at don't wear the hijab; one turned up wearing a tank top and jeans, according to Liza. What mattered was that they wanted the best in Islamic tuition for their children, with an eye towards competing in the Western world.

"It costs RM6000 per year?!" Nora and I yell in disbelief.

If she and her husband have to starve, they will. This is for Farhan's future.

We turn to look at our nephew, who's playing with his dinner and digging his nose at the same time.

"You better come out a genius when all this is over," we say. He grins back at us.

Holy cow and kambing

I don't know about you, but my time, it didn't cost that much to learn to read the Muqaddam and how to pray. We didn't have uniforms then, and when we were cheeky to the ustazs, we were chased around the house with a rotan. The boys wore shirts, pants and oversized songkoks on their heads borrowed from their fathers, while we girls wore flower-prints cotton kurungs and loose scarfs around our heads that slipped off from time to time.

Alif, our ustaz said, as he taught us to read Arabic alphabets. Repeat after me.

Alif.

Alif tanda atas, Ah. *

Ah.

Alif tanda bawah, Ee.

Ee.

Alif tanda depan, Uu.

Uu.

Ah Ee Uu.

AH EE UU.

My cousin, Sheridan had other ideas. He recited:

Alif Ba Ta **

Pak Ali mata buta

Nak cium anak dara

Tercium buntut kuda

We squealed in sheer horror and delight. Our ustaz was livid.

Ustaz rotan me again I tell Mummy, padan muka.

Peduli apa aku? You think I'm scared of your mother?

Whenever my parents travelled when I was a wee tot, I'd be deposited at my grandparents' home in Gong Kapas, Terengganu. One day, my Tok Nda hailed a lady in a trishaw to come over and teach me to recite Surah Al Fatihah. I was very playful as a child, and that old woman was frustrated with my diction. She stayed with me the whole afternoon, correcting my tajweed, before giving up on me, saying that my playfulness was due to my Kelantanese blood. I had never been pinched so much in my young life, and spent the evening weeping on Cik Minah, my nanny's lap.

There are just so many memories of kelas mengaji . There was such innocence to that era and my friends and I liken that time as akin to a P. Ramlee movie. We may have been whipped and sent home disgraced, but when we talk about those days now, we laugh. My friend Peanut has a hilarious story: she was always the first student to arrive at school. She went to a religious primary school, and to attend it, she had two obstacles - if she left late, she would either be chased by her Chinese neighbour's fierce dog or pounced upon by her other neighbour's insane mother. So she would leave home very early to catch the first bus to town, arrive and clamber over the gate and nap before school began.

Children these days won't have stories like this to tell. As I said before, nostalgia is no longer relevant to the 21st century.

Status

One has to move with the times. In smaller towns and villages, such religious instruction still happens I suppose. Today, religion is re-branded as exclusive, ambitious and the best way to mould young Muslims set to live in two worlds: the modern and Muslim. You can find Islamic courses online; there are videos and DVDs to teach Muslims how to pray.

My nephew is happy with his new school because he has friends, though one young girl punched him the other day and he's been complaining that he's sick of the vegetables the school serves for lunch. And of course in cities such as ours, one cannot hope that after school the kids would play by a stream and climb trees. City kids of professional parents have more pressing things to do: Kumon, ballet, sports, kids' theatre and they live in guarded homes, and apartments.

What about city kids from lower income homes?

They go to local schools and after school they attend sekolah agama (religious school). You see them by the road: young boys in white and maroon sampins, and young girls in white hijab, tunics and green sarongs, rushing off for their classes. When all that is over, they take public transport back to home or play in the urban jungle. They seem happy; laughing and joking with their friends, though there is a marked difference between them and their well-off peers.

Farhan's female classmates don't wear the scarf. They're deemed as too young to don the hijab. When puberty comes, only then will the issue of covering up be discussed. In the meantime, modesty is taught in school, so all the kids wear cute overalls and tee-shirts.

The kids I saw at Keramat the other day, wear the hijab, in and out of school.

Funny, that.

To be fair, not all the parents at my nephew's kindergarten are wealthy. Many lead frugal lives, such as my sister and her husband. But their belief in their children's dreams and futures overrides everything else, because like all parents, they want the best for their children.

However, who's to say that the best of education lies in private schooling? I would say that with private education, the exposure and social skills acquired are priceless. Teachers are educated and articulate. The students have resources at their disposal.

Yet I also know of a few that attended residential religious schools that have turned out to be fine investment bankers with a keen outlook on life, as well as one or two that had private education and ended up in non-descript professions.

As Muslims believe, you can plan, but in the end it is God that decides your fate.

* * *

I ask my nephew to demonstrate prayers again.

He waves his hand at me.

"No Nana. I tired. I sleep."

As usual, he repeats his nightly ritual. I wonder if Liza watched reruns of The Waltons when she was pregnant with him.

"Night Papa Ki. Night, Mama Wan. Night Nana, Achik!"

Good night, Farhan.

* This is a description of how Arabic alphabets are pronounced. If you look at the Quran in detail, you will note that the alphabets in the verses have tiny marks around them. These marks - tanda - tell you how to pronounce them.

** Loosely translated:

Ali Ba Ta (A, B, T)

Pak Ali is blind

He wanted to kiss a virgin

But kissed the backside of a horse instead.

DINA ZAMAN would like to wish all readers Gong Xi Fa Cai. She accepts angpows.