Will this be a better year?

Late last night Pakcik received a short New Year message from an ex-Almanar girl doing pharmacy in Bandong. She expected to read my New Year resolution. No, last night, I had no wish to write one. So Pakcik happily turned in soon after watching on TV the arrival of New Year celebration.

Then early this morning, another New Year message came through from a dear English friend of my yester-years, Ian Sanderson, now happily settled in the States with children and grandchildren.

“Hassan,

Happy new year to you & your family.
A few recent pictures for you.

All the best,
Ian”

HMS Endeavour

One of the six pictures is a sketch he made of HMS Endeavour, the ship used by the great English explorer, Captain James Cook in the 18th century. My friend must be reflecting of his life, his migration across the Atlantic. Indeed, I have had a kind of migration, too, from a busy life on the West Coast to the East, across the great Banjaran Titiwangsa! So, hurriedly I went in search of one of my old diaries. And I found one.

As usual, the first entry of that diary carried a ‘doa’ - in Arabic. Translated, here is a part of what I wrote 55 years ago:

“ ------------ Engkau telah mencipta diriku. Jadilah aku salah seorang daripada mereka yang berimam dengan hati mereka, bukan dibibir; membuat kebaikkan dan berjaya. Kiranya Engkau mengambil aku kembali biarlah selepas aku membuat kebajikkan ------------”

At the end of the diary was a list of 41 classmates and their addresses. Of that number, 16 persons, including two ladies, are no longer around. I say Al-Fathihah for these friends, people who coloured my life.

As always, the present and the past pupils of Almanar, I urge you to make your wishes and write them down. Years down the road you will be able to reflect whether in your fancy free days you made wishes that you are not ashamed of today. Have you got it all right or all wrong?

I have ceased to keep diaries but Pakcik still have unwritten wishes. I am not happy with Almanar classes in 2009 because an unusually large number dropped out during the course of the year. It is my wish that I will find a way in 2010 to keep as many pupils tuned and determined to improve themselves in life.

In the old diary mentioned above, Pakcik concluded with two lines in English,

“A year of success. May it be followed by similar years.”

Today, the first day of 2010 I ask myself, “Will this be a better year?”

Berkhidmat kerana Tuhan untuk kemanusiaan.

P.S.
Incidentally, I immediately asked Ian Sanderson why he did the sketches and here is his reply (not quite the reason I surmised above):

Hassan,
I did the ship pictures - some done on old marine charts -something different that might appeal.
I started with the Cutty Sark [a famous tea clipper ship that is at Greenwich, London]- I had made a model some time ago, same with America'- In 1880 it sailed across the Atlantic & beat 13 UK sailboats. Queen Vitoria asked 'who came second' -answer- 'there is no second'!

Cutty Sark

America

Free Spirit

Free Spirit 2

Great Harry 2

Almanar’s gate is closed, sorry. No class to-day

Photo taken on 26 Jan 2009

Go home and don’t look so sad, my friends. Go and celebrate the Year of the Ox. You may not be exactly one, but in this beloved country everyone celebrates everyone else’s New Year.

Come again tomorrow and try your luck into Almanar. The grass inside looks green and tempting.

Happy New Year 1430H and 2009

“Bismilla …..

Kepada Tuhan yang Maha Kuasa ku persembahkan segala-gala yang telah ku buat ditahun yang telah berlalu dan apa yang akan dibuat ditahun-tahun baharu. Kalau kejahatan mengatasi kebajikan dimasa yang telah lampau ku pohonkan semoga kebajikan bertambah ditahun baharu.

Kepada Kau, Tuhanku, ku persembahkan kesyukuran dan lautan terima kasih. Tak ada kejayaan yang telah ku perolehi kalau tidak dengan pertolongan dan keizinan Kau. Dari Mu ku masih dan akan selama-lama meminta pertolongan. Moga-moga Kau tak akan menghampakan permintaan ku yang suci.

Dengan adanya Engkau wujudnya aku didunia. Kepada Kau aku akan kembali. Saksama dan rahmat ialah yang aku pandang-pandang kan .

Amin”

That transcript was written fifty years ago today on the first page of Pak Cik’s Diary: Thursday 01-01-1959. (equiv. Hijrah 20.06.1378 )

I can still vividly imagine sitting alone in my room at 152, Herrick Road somewhere in the Midlands . The feeling of loneliness pervades me even as I was transcribing this today. It was cold, very cold in that room in a house without central heating. The use of an electric heater was too expensive for a student. It was loneliness living in a house with fellow students, none I could share my feeling with conversing in Malay language. By then I had been two years in that house enjoying an international company, eating foods prepared by an elderly English landlady. “Fish for you today, Hassan,” means everyone else was enjoying what I told her I could not take as Muslim. “You should try this, Hassan. Mrs Robertson is good at this, you know,” one or two at the table would tease me. Let me not dwell on this unpleasant subject.

You, children of Almanar. Pak Cik thought those words of prayers out when I was at about the same age as you who are at university today. I am proud to have those diaries of my yester-years. I look back and evaluate whether or not I have lived my life the way I promised myself fifty years ago. My above prayers tell me a lot of things, my success, my failure, where I have gone wrong and what little good I have achieved, and is there no room for improvement? If you make no effort to write down what you do and how you feel today, you will have lost the opportunity that one day you can look back and take pride, or bow your head with shame, in what has transpired in your life. Pak Cik said it all in those short prayers 50 years ago and I can say I have very little regret. He has answered my prayers.

To all of you I wish a happy new year, 1430 and 2009.

Berkhidmat kerana Tuhan untuk kemanusiaan.

1 Muharram 1429H - A New Year farewell to Pak Cik’s Ayah Cik (a belated posting)

Yes, another New Year. Pak Cik was up at five that morning to greet the arrival of our Muslim New Year.

It was a public holiday but Pak Cik had, nevertheless, decided to run my Almanar classes as usual, scheduling a two-and-half-hour one in the morning and another in the afternoon. By 8.20 Pak Cik was already crossing the road to Almanar, all very enthusiastic to deliver my royal New Year message to Form 3 pupils. Then came an uneasy feeling when no one was in sight. ‘These lazy children,’ ran my thought. But when the clock showed 8.30 and there was still no sign of them, I was beginning to lose my cool on the 1st day of Muharram.

A few form 4 and form 5 pupils began to turn up to study in private, greeting their obviously irritated Pak Cik. I strolled to check the time-table on the notice board then my diary. ‘Oh, this is an absolute cock-up!’ I told myself. It began to dawn on me that a few days earlier I decided to alter the morning group to the afternoon without telling the afternoon group to come in the morning. Pak Cik could now expect two groups fighting it out in the afternoon. A flurry of activities followed, sending messages of cancellation of afternoon for one of the two groups. That done and feeling somewhat relieved, Pak Cik decided to drive down town to buy some books and a pair of new sandals. A few shops were open that day.

“Baguslah pakai sandal baru hari pertama tahun baru,” commented the shop-keeper when Pak Cik put on my new purchase to walk out. Just as I was about to step into the car the hand-phone buzzed. This was not at all a welcome news after the morning’s mess-up. At the other end of the line was Pak Cik’s brother-in-law. His voice was terse to announce the death of Pak Cik’s uncle, Hj Ismail, whom Pak Cik lovingly addressed as Ayah Cik. In September this year he will be 92. By Maal Hijrah he is 95, a grand old man by any standard. In my new sandals Pak Cik dashed to his house.

So around ten in the morning of 1st Muharram 1429 the final curtain fell and Pak Cik’s uncle made his exit, his final ‘hijrah’. One moment he was seen resting on a couch and the next slumped on his side breathless. How easy and what an appropriate and auspicious date it was. May Allah bless his soul.

In his life Pak Cik’s Ayah Cik had two loves, collecting religious books ( kitabs ) and flower plants. Never tell him of your going to do Umrah and you could be sure of getting a shopping list of kitabs to buy in Mecca . I felt guilty that, at times Pak Cik avoided telling him of my intended umrah for fear of having extra weight to lug around.

Frail as he was he would not miss visiting the twice-a-week ‘pasar tani’ days (farmers’ open market days). He simply must stroll around ogling admiringly at the display of orchids and other flower plants, hoping to see a new breed. More often than not he would take one home. He ceased visiting the pasar tani when one day he was given a lift home without his trusted motorbike. He claimed that he had forgotten the place where he parked it, though many of us believed that it had been stolen. In a way it was a blessing as the family feared for his safety riding his motorbike shakily along the busy main road to and from the pasar tani.

Pak Cik visited this uncle a couple of weeks ago. After parking my car in front I walked straight into his house passing his many plants on the way, hardly noticing his small body among the plants. He was squatting on his bended knees watering a couple of potted orchids. “Kasihan nampak pokok-pokok ini tak kena air,” he murmured to me. To him his plants were as much alive as little children that needed to be loved and cared. Gone is Pak Cik’s Ayah Cik – a hijrah on the first day of Muharram 1429 - one new year day that I woke up to greet with high expectation only to begin with confusion at Almanar and a sad farewell to someone who had shown a lot of kindness to me in particular. Semoga dicucuri Allah rohnya.

Pak Cik reminisces (part 3) - New Year, 50 years ago

The clock on the wall is showing 2.05 am, Tuesday, the 1st of January 2008. Mak Cik is fast asleep after watching the New Year celebration on TV. In the dark and still of the night, Pak Cik have just said a short prayer on the verandah outside our bedroom, a way of saying farewell to 2007 and welcoming 2008. And now here I am, Pak Cik, sitting and thinking. From sheer force of habit Pak Cik have to sit back and reflect on the year that has just slipped by. What have I achieved to thank Him for and what failure is there that I should feel ashamed of myself as a legacy of 2007? And what do I do now for my tomorrow? I thank Him for the gifts of the past year and continue to seek more help for what I must start now to build a better tomorrow.

I reached into a box of old diaries and picked up that for 1957. It was on top because I had dug it out very recently for the note on Merdeka (Pak Cik Reminisces - Part 2). What a coincidence , 1st January 1957 fell on Tuesday as well. The page is full. As always it begins with a short prayer. This one is in my poor Arabic which says :

Bismillah …….. O God, I have not been fair to myself and I belong to the weak. So forgive me and strengthen my faith in You. All praises are Yours and to You I shall return. God, please help me through this new year as You have always helped me. To You goes all my gratitudse. Only you are the Perfect. .Amin.

The weather was cold where I was.
Afternoon temperature - 8 deg C
Evening temperature - 5 deg C.

Pak Cik must be sensing the great change in weather to see it fit to record the temperature readings in my diary. Here I am in my in my room with the air-conditioner set at 23 deg C.

To the Almanar community, the past and present, Pak Cik wish and pray that this new year will be better than the ones gone by. Do reflect on the past, resolve to achieve better and start the act today. As Pak Cik often say to you all, Yesterdays are not ours and we cannot count on tomorrows. Those are His, Alawwalu wal Akhiru. If at all we can claim today to do something and then we can hope and pray that we have a better tomorrow.

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