Year 2020 a wake-up call of sorts for Alif Satar

Compiled by C. ARUNO, HEMANANTHANI SIVANANDAM and R. ARAVINTHAN

SINGER Alif Satar, who recently recovered from Covid-19, said the year 2020 has been a wake-up call about having gratitude and re-evaluating his priorities in life.

“Maybe before this, I was too laidback and too focused on my career so the experience has opened my eyes. It was a spiritual wake-up call, ” Harian Metro quoted him as saying.

After being tested positive for the virus, Alif said he began to view the contagion from a different perspective, especially amid the government’s #KitaJagaKita clarion call.

Alif said many people are still indifferent about the situation and do not realise the consequences of the pandemic.

According to him, he observed the ugly side of the community when he was undergoing treatment.

Many people, he said, had negative perception of Covid-19 patients and their family members.

However, Alif, who was admitted to Hospital Melaka, said he was thankful that his neighbours did not shun his family when they were undergoing the 14-day quarantine.

His neighbours gave a helping hand by buying groceries and running errands for them.

“This is how the community should be. We shouldn’t shun someone or their family just because they had Covid-19, ” he said.

> A dream wedding for a couple in Kelantan took an unexpected turn due to the floods, Sinar Harian reported.

Their big day was ruined when the house of the bride, Nor Asmira Mohd Zaid, 22, was flooded on Saturday.

Nor Asmira said the groom’s entourage ended up arriving in a fire engine.

She said the wedding photographer, make-up artist and guests could not make it for the event.

However, both Nor Asmira and her groom Mohamad Farid Mohamad Rakman, 25, went ahead with the wedding but on a smaller scale.

The couple did not sit on a wedding dais, which was moved twice but still could not be used due to the floodwater.

“I had to go on with the ceremony because all the preparations were done, ” said Nor Asmira.

“Thankfully, I had picked up my wedding attire earlier.

“I didn’t expect the floods to arrive earlier compared to the years before, ” she said.

The floods also caused Mohamad Farid to cancel the reception planned by his family.

The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.