Life is but a dream ……

Maulidur Rasul Day

I was scribbling on what was a typical of my working day 10 months ago. On that particular day, I was pursuing four mega (according to me la …) projects. Mega here not just the project costs, but the complexities, the technicalities, the competitions, the strategic positioning, the multi-dimensional facets, the risks as well as rewards.

Yesterday, my team (these are my colleagues, not those hoodlum’s balachis) and I spend 14-solid hours in a meeting with the end-user to finalise all the technical and commercial aspects of one of the projects. We finally concluded the meeting at 10.15 pm.

Yezza, yezza. We just won the job to supply our solutions and expertise to the first floating production platform in AsiaPac. That project itself is a history in a making. I’m already making some mental notes on the ’success story’ article for the company’s bulletin.

I felt very much please and syukur to the Almighty. All the hard day’s night for the past year has been handsomely paid off. That’s one down, three more to go.

This is a family.

A father and a mother, four kids (two boys & two girls) and a cat.

It’s almost midnight, out of the sudden I felt small. Real small. Insignificantly negligible. My mind drifted to this day, every year, for the last God knows when.

It’s my birthday. The day I was born. A tiny and feeble boy without much hope, with a fragile health. Well, that boy survived. He almost drowned when he was six years old. If not because of some ‘makhluk Allah’ that save him, pushing him from the bottom of the big drain in the wet wet wet Bagan Serai.

Life in the kampung, was not exactly all fun and frolics. I remembered that with 50 cents as the duit blanja, I can’t afford the 30 cents Vitagen, or the 50 cents Nutella, or the 70 cents delicious ice-cream cones.

I did my best. I did get top of the class. I did go to a boarding school. But you know what, initially I had only 2 pairs of school uniforms, and 2 pairs of baju Melayu, with nerdy-looking spek kerajaan. My dad even sent me with a taxi.

I did became the captain of the school cricket team, a Perak player, a member of the Prefect Board, a Librarian, secretary of the House, a corporal in the Cadet Corps, get a relatively good result in SPM. Had a girlfriend. Went to another boarding school for ‘A’ Levels, became the Headboy, achieved the ‘Tokoh Pelajar’ award, went to UK, did Aerospace Engineering. Lost the girlfriend. Travel all over.

Came back to Malaysia, became an engineer, did offshore projects, get married to a great lady, have four wonderful kids, become manager, travel all over etc …

Never do I forget my humble upbringing.

That’s my life, in a nutshell, as told by yours truly.

The other morning, I was a bit late sending the kids to school. It was 7.35 am, and I was about 250m to the corner of Ateef’s school entrance. Suddenly the car in front of me stopped and the driver was about to make a U-turn, without warning.

‘What the &%$*!’

‘Daddy, what the hood nanny did you just said?’ Ateef suddenly bursted.

‘Nothing sayang. Just look at that stupid car.’

‘Don’t you ever say that word in front of me again.’

‘What word? That word. Sorry sayang. I won’t say it again.’

I just had my lesson learnt early in the morning.