Days with my mentor...amongst other things..

I was stirred by the movement of my mobile phone, vibrating away on the surface of my office table. It was an incoming message from someone stored as PAV.

“Received your message. Just came back from Australia. Please come, both of you. Have lunch here at the campus.”

“Yes Prof. Will do! And will call you when we arrive,” I replied.

I told my friend L of this good news.

“We will be at Ipoh first, right?” said L, grinning.

”Yes! We will visit our student who is undergoing his industrial training at the JKR Electric first. Then we will be off to visit the other student after our lunch with Prof,” said I.

A few days after that, we were on our way to Tronoh, with me behind the wheel. We turned into the UTP campus grounds off the main road to Lumut. Further in, we could catch a glimpse of the greenery at the students’ square, a place where plants could barely survive, about twenty years ago.

From afar, we could see hands waving to us, trying to show us a suitable place to park the car. Hands that belong to an old, familiar face.

Just as we stepped out of the car, an ever friendly voice rang in the air, “Hello! How are you both?”

“Happy!” said I.

“And fine!” said L.

“Come! Come right this way. To my office!” said our mentor, showing us the way.

We talked. Catching up, exchanging news, about family and everything else. He, asking about our respective children, now all grown up…how time flew. Then we had to leave after a scrumptious lunch at the café. And the next moment, we were on our way to visit our other student, in our line of duty. But not after having some pictures taken with our old professor.

Professor PAV reported for duty with USM Perak Branch at the temporary campus in Ipoh around 1988. L was fresh out from a university further down south while I had moved from the main campus in Penang, two years prior to that. Since then, PAV had taught us a lot of things. I, especially learnt a lot from him. Many valuable things. L and I helped him in tutorials, in the subjects that he taught. Also, during the lab sessions.

When we moved to the permanent site at Seri Iskandar, PAV encouraged us both to pursue our postgraduate studies. He became my supervisor during my pursuit of M.Sc through research mode. L opted to be under somebody else in an area of her own interest.

Under his tutelage, I learnt how to apply for research grants… short term and long term grants. Also, on how to manage the approved research grants that we successfully applied for. Usually, he was the project leader, while I was a co-researcher.

“Grants are vital to fuel our innovative venture and for the exploration of knowledge. From there, we can generate new knowledge. The money may be used for a multitude of purposes. One of it is, to be able to sponsor new postgraduate students in our field of research. In doing so, we may produce more knowledgeable people,” I remembered him telling me. The message still lingers in my mind to this day.

Those years under his guidance were really precious to me. My learning curve was at its highest. He dragged me into helping him with organizing an international conference, something which at first I was reluctant to do, because I thought I was incapable of doing. The international conference ROVPIA (Robotics, Vision, Parallel Processing and Automation) first came into being in 1994. Then, he pushed me into becoming the chairman of the publications committee, the editor-in-chief responsible for the proceedings, his right hand ‘man’ in organizing ROVPIA in the years to come (1996, 1999). L too was involved in another subcommittee. When we moved to the new campus at Nibong Tebal (Prof. PAV joined UTP then), the conference name was changed to ROVISP (Robotics, Vision and Signal Processing) beginning from the year 2003. And I shared the little knowledge and skills that I gathered during my past organizing tasks to new and fresh academic faces at the new place. Since then, for ROVISP 2005 and 2007, the heavy baton of organizing the international conference has been passed to other new breeds.

One great thing that I learnt to copy from PAV was his resilience. Giving up was definitely not in his dictionary. I have always detested campus politics. But I could see that these had not distracted nor affected him, much less, to deter him from his focus and pursuits.

“Do not worry yourself with whatever things that other people say. Just continue to do you own work. And do it with diligence and utmost sincerity,” these words of his, still ringing in my ears even after 16 years. Something that I have always held on to.

Wherever he went, PAV would never fail to bring fame to the place he was representing. During his days with USM, he has garnered many research awards. Likewise, when he joined UTP. He was also my supervisor during my early years, while embarking on my Ph.D before his term with USM came to an end. I have been trying to put down on paper all the little experiences and wisdom that I had gathered under his guidance; in a book to be published under the genre of ‘professional novel’. A book laden and laced with facts, but presented in a ‘novel like’ approach.

I hope that this up and coming book of mine would serve as a guide for those in pursuit of their postgraduate studies. Our country aspires that 60% of its academics would be Ph.D holders as opposed to only 30% at the present moment in time. Therefore, this book is written with the intention of making a small contribution towards that aspiration…to shed some light, to spur the spirits of others…in his or her journey of a lifetime…a piece of writing that would be called “Mendaki Liku, Meraih Mercu”…( which may be translated as ‘With Grit, Let Us Conquer the Summit’, more or less.)