To Sir With Love

Cikgu Din, still slim and trim after all these years, with his erstwhile pupil, who has grown fourfolds from size S to XL in just as many decades.


The reunion also brought together four 'old gals' of Sekolah Tun Fatimah (STF), Johore Baru. From left: Fatimah, Zahana (my sister), Rohani and yours truly. A pleasant surprise that really was.

Standard 6, Class of '66. The guy in off-white shirt and brown pants sitting next to me is Zubir Embong (now Datuk Zubir and a former MP), a school rascal if ever there was one, whose gocoh (fist fights) sessions were legendary. In the back row are some of our former teachers; one of them Zubir's father, Cikgu Embong, who would seek Cikgu Din's intervention to bring his exasperating son to book.

Cikgu Din

When I was seven in 1961 he must have been in his mid-20s. A looker he really was; small-framed with sawo matang (darkish) skin and thick, wavy hair done in the style of Elvis Presley (with a hint of 'curry puff' for that killer effect), and a broody look reminiscent of Marlon Brando.

All the bachelor teachers, himself included, were housed in a rumah berek (barrack-like housing) painted yellow just down the slope from our wooden house on stilts in Kampung Baru, Bukit Besi.

Because of our close proximity to the teachers' housing, I inevitably became his little helper; carrying his teaching paraphernalia and students' exercise books that he took home daily for marking. I enjoyed being useful, and he graciously allowed me to.

His was the quiet voice of authority in my life then, apart from Grandma's ceaseless prattle and Grandpa's occasional rejoinder. At home Pah and Tok Ayah ruled, but in school it was him I looked up to because in my young eyes, he was king of all he surveyed.

It's a marvel how the memories of him, and him alone amongst all those who had taught me in Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Besi from 1961 to 1966, stood out in my mind over the years.

I carried him with me throughout the changing seasons of my life, never forgetting how deeply I felt for this teacher who held my hand when I first step foot into school, and again in the last year before I moved on, out of the school and his life, and out of Bukit Besi itself.

I had often wondered if I would ever see him again. We lost touch when I left Bukit Besi to continue my schooling in Dungun 33 kilometres away, and eventually to Sekolah Tun Fatimah in JB.

By the time I completed Form Five and moved on to Kuala Terengganu to begin Sixth Form, memories of him were deeply entrenched in the far recesses of my cluttered mind, to be aired every now and then with a wistful "Whatever happened to Cikgu Din...?" And nobody seemed to know the answer.

By the grace of God, it was in the holy city of Makkah Al-Mukarramah while on the Hajj pilgrimage in 2008 that the link long severed was finally resumed.

In the throng of millions, who would I meet but a couple from Trengganu who turned out to be neighbours of Cikgu Din! They said they knew him well, that he was in his 70s and a bit frail physically but still on the ball otherwise.

I made a promise to myself that I would find time to visit him upon my return. Before I knew it, a year had passed and I was up to my ears with work. Then our secondary school in Dungun held a reunion and off I went, but the trip was too fleeting to go a-hunting for Cikgu Din's abode.

A week ago today, in a place where his life and mine first became entwined, Cikgu Shamsuddin Yusof and I met again after 44 years. What an emotional moment it was when I took his hands and kissed them, eyes brimming with tears. Words were redundant at moments like this....

PS: Some 100 former students, and about 10 teachers, turned up. The reunion was for Standard Six classes from throughout the 1960s to year 1970.