A Tribute to the late Tan Sri Rafie Mahat
Sometime in life, no matter how small or simple one’s contribution, at your least expected … those moment will follow and remain with you for the rest of our lives.
During my school days (the best moment of my life), I have been very active in sports, I represented my house team, as well as my school and Malacca state. For that reason, I was nominated for school “Sportsman of the year” in 1988, but only came second behind Minarwan Nawawi, who represented Malaysia in hoki. Well, to cut it short, I was in Malacca High School from 1982 - 1988.
Basically, my personal opinion about the late Tan Sri Rafie Mahat, (our school head master from 1985-1990) is a man that will treat everyone equally no matter who you are and he will have time for everybody, no matter how busy he is. In that manner, I believed he gained all the school teachers and staff respect and for sure, all students as well. Indeed a great man, he was.
Back in 1988, my school cross-county event, unexpectedly, I was the runner-up, behind Sivaraja (our school top long distance runner) and upset many favourites on the event. And during the medal presentation, Encik Rafie as we known him then, gave me a few tap on my head and said “Well done Ming Kiong!", The way I see you training hard for this event, I know you’ll do well. Take this attitude with you even after you leave this place, ..... and you’ll do well in life”. These words are my personal school parting present from him.
By the way, he recognised and knew most of us by our names. I wonder was it because my groups of friends were the mischievous bunch in school. Hee! Hee! Hee! I guess not!
During our STPM exams in 1988, when some of our exam papers were postponed due to heavy rain and flood in the east coast (if I’m not wrong that’s when suddenly the whole idea of cycling and camping trip from Malacca to Kota Tinggi, Johore came about). Honestly, I have given up hope on my exam (Sssssh, not too loud! I might get into trouble with my parent otherwise!) and so without any hesitation, I volunteered myself as secretary and planned the trip. 15 students join in the group and we have another 3 that travelled by bus and met us at Kota Tinggi camping site.
I remembered very well few of us went to see En Rafie at his office and presented him with our master plan. Well, to our surprise, not only did he supported our trip, he was very kind and even got us a place to stay, too, at our stopover destinations in Batu Pahat and Johore Baharu. At Batu Pahat we stayed at Sekolah Dato’ Bentara Luar (about 100km from Melaka) and in Johore Baharu we were put in Maktab Sultan Abu Bakar (about 120km distance from Batu Pahat).
Until today this trip was the highlight adventure journey and the craziest one, too, for most of us. Whenever we sit down at any coffee shop and talk about it, we just don’t know how to thank Encik Rafie enough. Without his approval and blessings, the whole trip would not have materialised.
For many of us, he touches our lives,…. in a way or another.
Judging from the old photos, you can see that all of us were actually using traditional bicycles (except 1 using racing bike because of a punctured tire at that very morning of the journey, probably was just an excuse) and no gear.
A BIG BIG THANK YOU
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