Unforgetable Person

EDUCATION STUDIES COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES SBLE 1032 – ENGLISH FOR COMMUNICATION 1 TITLE: THE MOST UNFORGETABLE PERSON IN MY LIFE

Prepared By :

NAME

: Nazzir Hussain Bin Haji Mydeen

MATRIX NO.

: 201400 LETCTURER

Mr. S. Ulaganathan

It was more than twenty years ago when I met him, at a mosque in Tambun. I had gone there with my best friend, Shankar who wanted to phone his fiancé. In the age before hand-held mobile phones, that meant a bag-full of coins and queuing at a public phone booth. As our college had but one such booth, and the line of love-lorn boys and girls would be endless, Shankar decided to go to Tambun. He asked me along as he had countless time before, the love-struck Romeo even offered to pay for dinner. So, off we went to Tambun, about 7 km away from our Maktab Perguruan Ipoh Perak in Hulu Kinta.

While Shankar was busy building his Taj Mahal over the phone with his fiancée, Chris, I went for maghrib prayers in the Tambun Mosque. After prayers, I struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman. He told me that his name was Pak Abu. He enquired about me as he had not seen me there before.

As we talked, I gathered that he had raised six children, of which four were doctors. The other two, one was an engineer and the other a lawyer. I was impressed to say the least. I asked him how he managed to motivate his children to such excellence. He said that as he was just a postal clerk with a limited income, he couldn’t afford to send his children for tuition.

What he did was, he would spend an hour each day with his children reading. He led by example as he would be reading with them, not just telling the children to read while watching television. The reading hour became a routine in his household. Even when the father was away, the family would still be reading at the appointed hour. “Reading is the key to knowledge”, he impressed upon me, “If your children is keen on reading, they would be successful”.

I came away from that encounter thinking deeply about the lesson that was given to me by a stranger, a proud father of

six successful children. I knew that I would have to become an avid reader if I ever wanted my children to read avidly as well. That in a way sparked a change in my life, a change that is still with me. A friendly chat of about five minutes with one of the most unforgettable person in my life.