Six Minutes to Midnight

Six Minutes to Midnight
Part 1, Reflections on a Life Well Lived

I have a friend whose uncle, like my late mom, also has an * IC number by the name of “Khalid” but everyone calls him “Pak Ali.” Turns out its the same story - he used a dead younger brother’s birth certificate to enrol himself to go to school. 

Thing is this - after the war, schools were limited in number and so were school places. There was a cut-off age and those older than that age didn’t get to go to school as there were not enough places. So people like Tok and Pak Ali used a dead younger sibling’s birth cert to register in order to attend school. In Tok’s case, she was actually born on Sept 22 1934 but used a birth cert dated Aug 13 1935.

Even at that young age, Tok realised the value of education. Her father and his ancestors came from Baghdad via Afghanistan. They were missionaries and travelled the world opening madrasah where they taught reading, writing, arithmetic and reading the Holy Quran. Perhaps Tok had seen how her father’s educated pupils led better lives than their uneducated contemporaries. You’ll also note that both Tok and grandpa were the most educated among their siblings. The only ones in their families to go study in England.

That’s why, in our family, we place so much emphasis and encouragement on education. And Tok was a teacher because that was what her father’s side of the family did as a family profession. Maybe that’s why Azman is a scuba and flying instructor - teaching is in our genes.

In our family, we NEVER say “she’s a girl, takpe kalau tak belajar kuat-kuat, just get married and let your husband look after you,” unlike in so many other Malay families.

I’m writing this as a tribute to honour Tok’s memory, and to celebrate her life - a life well-lived. I don’t think she wants to be mourned and for us to be sad. Knowing Tok, she’d want us to take what we can from her life and use it as an example to lead our own lives. I know that would make her very happy indeed...

Note

IC numbers take the form YYMMDD-12-345M

where YY are the last two digits of the year of birth, MM denotes the month of birth, DD denotes day of month. M is an odd digit for males, and even digit for females. Very rarely, as in the case of mom and “Pak Ali,” their IC number has an asterisk (*) after M, like so:

340101-01-1234*. This denotes that the first six digits of the IC number does not denote their actual date of birth.

Copyright 2003-2019 Azlan Adnan Legal Notice Copyright 2003-2019 Azlan Adnan. This blog post is sponsored by The Green Party of Malaysia