Pakcik reminisces (Pt 17 – Sec 1/2)) – The road not taken

I do not remember when was the first time I came across Robert Frost’s poem ‘The road not taken’. It was certainly during my school days. I thought it was a beautiful, but at a young age I could not grasp the full implication of the poem. A few years back this short poem was included in the secondary school English text book. The short poem reads:

The Road Not Taken
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back,

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverging in a wood, and I,
I took one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

( By Robert Frost )
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And now so much water has flowed under the bridge. I have begun to see this poem in a new dimension. On a long journey through life one is bound to encounter ‘two roads diverging in the wood’. And more often than not we make our selection almost subconsciously. So whenever I stood to explain this poem to Almanar children I reflected on my own journey and could not help feeling tears well up in my eyes.

In my earlier posting I moaned over the five individuals in the picture below:

The 1952 school librarians

Today only one person still remains standing. The other four, all respected ‘ustaz’ in their own right, have left (Alfatihah to them). The last one to have left us was Ustaz Abdul Malek, who served as the Imam of Sydney mosque. He came from the well known ‘AlYunani’ family of Terengganu.

Looking at the above picture does not only bring me back to a distant, happy and care-free moment in time but also to a point in time which represented a corner stone, a very significant landmark in my life.

The picture was taken in 1952 ,our final year, the 7th year, at the Madrasah Sultan Zainal Abidin (MSZA). The five of us were appointed to be the first batch of librarians of the new school library. In age I was the youngest in that class because during the first four years at the school I was double-promoted twice. So by the time I reached Std 7 in 1952 I was two years younger than my classmates. All the same, many of us had something in common, A DREAM. We aspired to go for further studies at the celebrated Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Without exaggeration, many prominent Islamic scholars in the state, practically all the state ‘mufti’, ‘kadi’ etc, were the products of MSZA. This included the longest serving Menteri Besar of Terengganu, Tan Sri Hj Wan Mokhtar Ahmad.

About the time I was stepping into my final year at MSZA in 1952 my elder brother injected a fresh idea into my mind. At that point in time the idea was seen as a minor diversion from the original plan to go to Cairo immediately after MSZA. Having himself done a course in Islamic studies in Saudi Arabia, and regarded as the wiser one in our family, he felt that I should learn more English before going all out for the Arabic/Islamic education in Cairo – delaying the trip to Cairo somewhat.

Perhaps I should mention here that in 1953 there was only one Government English School in K Terenganu ( Sultan Sulaiman English School – SSES) to serve the whole state of Terengganu. There was a private English school which offered evening classes..

1952 & 1953 diary

1952 diary - ( Feb 2nd, the Federation Day - a public holiday)

My 1952 and 1953 diaries are in a pitiful state, faded and damaged by silver-fish. Nevertheless the 1952 diary had it recorded that in the evening of Friday, Jan 4th I joined the evening class at the private school. This date marked the starting point from where my English education was beginning to be taken more seriously.

Who was I to know that Friday Jan 4th 1952 was a fateful date. Unconsciously I had made a choice between the two diverging roads.
I repeat:

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverging in a wood, and I,
I took one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

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To be continued …


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