To Sir, Cikgu, and Everyone in Between
What do my dear father, my uncle Pak Alang, my mother-in-law, my eldest brother Yeop, my big brother Yang and his wife Kak Yang, my beloved wife, and even my ex have in common? They are all teachers — remarkable ones at that. I hold deep affection for each of them. Excluding the ex, of course. My wife is reading this.
On a fine summer day at Stirling University — a place so scenic it makes landscape painters feel inadequate, all lochs and glens and Trossachs — I crossed paths with a PhD student from Malaysia. After swapping stories, he looked me in the eye and said, "Your father is the reason I am here. I owe him everything."
Eh, really? I nearly choked on my shortbread (should be nasi lemak ... but that time I was in Scotland mind you).
It turned out my father had once urged this young man to stay in school and quietly paid his boat fare home. This was the swinging 60s — a time when such a small act could redirect an entire life's trajectory. When I told my father, he was pleased, but unsurprised. Humble as always. I suspect that boy was far from the only one.
Then there's Yeop. Napoleon Hill once said, "If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way." Yeop didn't just read that quote — he apparently took it as a personal challenge.
Posted to a remote primary school in the Jelapang area in the late 80s — the kind of place that doesn't appear on GPS, tucked somewhere between a waterfall and a prayer — Yeop proceeded to turn it into the Kinta District Champions for girls' hockey. Not despite the school's size. Because of his belief in it. His students excelled on the field and in the classroom. I once had the honour of giving a motivational talk there during the Summer holidays. I like to think I helped. Yeop's daughter, by the way, became the most adorable Malaysian hockey player to ever grace a pitch. The apple doesn't fall far from the dugout.
My brother Yang, meanwhile, has always had the endearing habit of dangling his achievements just low enough for me to jump at them. He once announced, with great ceremony, that he'd passed his driving test in ten hours. I did it in six. Yang, if you're reading this — yes, I'm still counting.
But credit where it's due: during his time at MCKK in the early 90s, he pulled off something considered borderline miraculous — more than two classes of students scoring A1s in Additional Mathematics. In those days, that wasn't just impressive. It was the sort of thing people whispered about in the staffroom.
I, too, was shaped by extraordinary teachers. Mrs Lim at SK Methodist ACS Sitiawan — seemingly fierce, secretly kind, the classic combo. Mr Velupillay, my cricket coach, who handed me fifty ringgit (now worth around RM 185) during the U-16 MSSM and threw in free Physics tutorials because apparently he believed in compound investment. The sweet Ms Venny Lee, my 5S form teacher. Ms Zuraidah, my A-Level Chemistry teacher — with whom, I must say, we had genuine chemistry. And Mr Willie Ross, my Technical Drawing lecturer in Glasgow University, who delivered every lesson in a Scottish kilt with the energy of a man who had absolutely nothing to prove.
Evidently, lecturers count too. The list, it seems, is longer than I thought.
To all of them — the patient ones, the fierce ones, the quietly generous ones who paid boat fares and gave fifty ringgit and wore kilts without irony — Selamat Hari Guru.
If you wanted the sky I would write across the sky in letters That would soar a thousand feet high To you, with love
Those awkward years have hurried by, why did they fly, fly away? Why is it Sir, children grow up to be people one day?
What takes the place of climbing trees, And dirty knees, in the world outside? What, what is there that I can buy?
— To Sir With Love, Lulu
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