Passing of a friend and 3rd year room mate at University of Malaya

Last week I received the sad news from a causin who is a Professor at UPM about the passing away of Dato' Dr. Halim Hassan, my room mate at the First Residential College at the University of Malaya [UM]in Acedemic Year 1961/62. Although he was in and out of hospital for three months prior to his demise, nobody had told me about his deteriorating condition. I was all the time thinking that he was still in Sarawak where he had been working after retiring from his last position as Director General of PORLA, a government research organisation for oil palm. I understand that YAB Tan Sri Taib Mahmud had kindly invited him to go over to work in one of his family owned companies. As we are all aware, government pension is so small that most government pensioners have to continue slogging if they want to maintain a quality of life that thay are used to.

What I want to emphasise here is the lack of connectivity or exchange of news among old friends when we are no longer in active service. In Islam it is "saliturrahim" which is glaringly missing among us once we are "out of circulation". Of course there are those who still keep up with their golfing or clubbing activities but then it will still be limited to those who share the same hobbies. To improve this connectivity or linkages with old friend, I think the internet presents the best option. But here again not many of those in their 60s and 70s want to learn and adopt this new "tool".

MSAbdullah.