Today In History

When you're born n bred in Alor Setar, Kedah and especially if one or both of your parents were born n bred in Alor Setar, Kedah, you are more than likely to have crossed paths with some of Kedah's most prodigious sons & daughters the likes of the late Tunku Abdul Rahman and former PM & First Lady Tun Dr. M and Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah respectively.

In my parents' case, they were the latter: former Malaysian PM Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad and Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah. My father were in the same school as Dr. M (several years Dr.M's junior) but a strong friendship was built between them despite the years.

Well, today will be well remembered by my mum at least coz dad was nowhere in sight when it happened. It was memorable for me, too!

So what happened?

Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah personally called my parents at my brother's place in Singapore. Of course I had given her the contact number in the first place. I had finally decided to become the intermediary after several years of procrastination.

While Dr.M was in office, I felt that it wouldn't be advisable even they have every right to renew their friendship. Dr. M had his detractors (and he still does) then who were always on the lookout for every excuse to topple him from office or at the very least, make life very difficult for him and I didn't want to get my parents involved in such politic-king.

Now that Dr. M is no longer in office and incumbent PM Datuk Seri Abdullah is in his "groove", I felt safe enough to venture the initial contact to Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah. I wrote a short letter introducing myself and gave her my parents' contacts and posted the letter (of course being the perennial procrastinator, I'd left the letter sitting on my work desk for about 3 days before writing down Tun's address).

I think she'd received the letter yesterday or early this morning coz by the time I'd come back from sending Jay to Day-care, at about 10.30am, my mum had called me at home. Before I could get my mobile out of the belt case, Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah called me on it.

Surprised hardly describes how I felt then. First thought was "Shit! Did I forget a doctor's appointment today?". Second thought "Is this doctor from the Blood bank calling me with bad news?" (I'm a regular blood donor). She had to repeat her name several times before it sank in that I have THE Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah on the other end of my mobile.

Well, now that I have the former First Lady on the line, what do I do?....thoughts flashed through my mind..."how do I address her?", "Yang Amat Berhormat's such a tongue twister and too long"..."'YAB' sounds too informal"...finally settled for "Tun" though I had made up my mind some time back to address them as Doctor for they had worked hard to earn it and no one could take it away from them.

She was very pleasant to talk to and she remembered little details of my letter. Sure, she could have had the letter in her hand as she spoke. What struck me was that she called my parents! I had expected a short hand-written note (like the one my dad received from Dr. M while he was in office, my dad showed it to me the day he received it) or a letter. But for her to personally call and talk to my parents? And for her to ask for my number to thank me for giving the contact details? Says a whole lot about her as a person.

So what did we talk about? Little things to refresh their memories of my parents. Little things like what my mum did since they last met, what my dad worked as before retirement. I gave her a brief history lesson on my parents' activities prior to retirement!

One thing stayed clear in my mind from our conversation: she too had problems getting the Government especially the Education Ministry to make some forward progress for the both the learning and physically disabled while she was the President of BAKTI! I was left with the impression that BAKTI was allowed to be setup to keep the wifes busy while the hubbies attended to important stuff. FYI, BAKTI is an organization set up and run by the wifes of Malaysia's leaders to provide assistance to individuals who need assistance and attention (www.mind.org.my).

She still feels strongly for BAKTI's contributions and work though she's "retired" as President for she's still very much involved with MIND-The Malaysian Information Network on Disabilities which works very closely with BAKTI.

What she and mum talked about I'll never know but I did tell Tun that she can get a hold of dad when he's over at my place this weekend...much cheaper local call. I'll just have to wait for that call to come through. My kids have no idea who is Tun Dr. SIti Hasmah or Tun Dr. Mahathir nor understood what the fuss was all about!

One day, I'll dig out some of faded photos n show them who Dr. M and their granddad looked like in Secondary School uniforms and also photos of Tun Dr. M and Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah when he was in office.

6 June 2007 - Kuala Lumpur