Some people like a bit of fanfare when they do their bit for charity. Others keep a low profile and lend a helping hand simply because easing the burden of others, especially the destitute, is their way of serving God.
Such is the case with former police lance corporal A Aroljesuthasan, 57, who was just recently in the news after he pledged to make a once-yearly donation of half a month’s pension, or RM500, for the next 20 years to two young children who lost their parents in an accident.
Arol, as he prefers to be called, has been doing such good deeds for years, FMT found out, when the ex-cop reluctantly agreed to an interview, after having successfully “flown under the radar” for so long.
“What the right hand gives, the left should not know. I am not doing this for recognition, I am doing this for God and my afterlife,” Arol said of his habit of scanning the newspapers for news of those needing assistance, monetary and otherwise, despite his then modest take-home salary of RM1,500.
Now retired and newly married, Arol came to know about the two sisters after they were left orphaned in a crash at Sungai Bakap, near Perai, on the North-South Expressway, on April 28. News reports of the accident said their father, Khosim Ismail, 32, and mother Khairunnisa Ahmad Kamaluddin, 31, had held tightly onto the children to brace them from the impact of the crash.
Their lorry slammed into another parked on the emergency lane of the expressway, killing the parents and leaving Khairiyah Alisha Khosim, 10, and Khaira Amni, one, with injuries. Moved by their tragic circumstances, Arol visited the sisters at the Penang Hospital the first chance he got.
“When I saw them, I told my wife, we had to help them. So I wrote a contract stating RM500 of my RM1,000 pension in December every year will go to them.
“Why December? Because it is the month before school starts… so they get enough money to buy uniforms and other needs for school. I have pledged to help them for 19 years.“Even if I die, my wife will pay on my behalf. No matter what happens, they will get this money until they can work on their own.
“Ultimately, I want the two children to grow up to be useful Malaysians and maybe join the police force in remembrance of me,” Arol said.
Taiping-born Arol moved to Penang in 1981 for his first posting as a policeman at the Patani Road police station. He spent most of his 36 years in the force at the station and briefly at the Bukit Tengah station near Bukit Mertajam.
Last year, he married his long-time friend and Penang High Court interpreter M Susheela Devi, 47. Even after retiring from the force in 2006, Arol continues to help the poor and needy, using some of the extra income he earns from a small plot of land he rents to poultry farmers.
When asked how many people he has helped to date, he politely declined to give an exact figure except to say “maybe 10 people or more”. Arol recalled one particular incident when he helped a Malay man whose newborn daughter had a hole in her heart.
“I heard about the case from a friend at Penang Hospital. But the man had discharged his daughter and left for Sungai Petani. I managed to get the man’s number and asked him why (he discharged his baby). He told me he was a single parent and had to put food on the table for two other children. He said if he was to allow the baby to go through with the surgery, he would have to stay at the hospital to watch over her, and he was not prepared to do that.”
Moved by the man’s plight, Arol said he gave the man RM700 from his savings and offered to drive him and the baby back to Penang Hospital for the life-saving surgery. I will never forget that day. He shook my hand. Tears fell freely, wetting my hands. He called me recently, telling me to inform him if ever my phone number changed.
“I asked why and he said he wanted his daughter to thank me in person when she grows up, that a pak cik had helped her live,” he said.
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