Four
ROTARIANS ALL:
SOME
MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
(cont'd - 2)
A blow-by-blow description of each of the Club's past and present members clearly lies beyond the scope of this slim volume, but mention must be made of some, whilst remembering that 'they also serve who only stand and wait'.
Pride of place in any discussion of the contribution made by individual members must go to K.S. Menon, invariably referred to as 'the Pope'. Menon devoted himself to and became identified with and committed to the Rotary movement to a degree which even Paul Harris would have had to pause to admire. He was born in Kerala in 1902, symbolically enough, in the same decade as that of Rotary itself. His whole career was that of a scribe, in modern parlance a secretary and stenographer, first with the Education Department in Cochin, South India, then, from 1930 till the end of the Second World War, as a clerk on Seafield Estate. Subsequently, he served with the Selangor State Social Welfare Department and the Selangor Secretariat, was transferred to the Elections Commission and then to the Supreme Court. At the time of his retirement in 1960 he was Secretary to the Judges of Appeal.
His connection with Rotary started immediately after the War when he became a member of the KL Club. As we have seen, he became a Charter member of PJ Rotary in 1961 and served as a member until his recent death in May 1992. Whilst with the Club, he had the distinction not only of serving for an unprecedented eight years as Secretary, but also of doubling as the 'unofficial' secretary of the KL Rotary Club for over twenty years. His nickname, 'The Pope', was much more than a good example of Malaysian wit. His solid, regular features crowned by a bald pate indeed had a Papal air about them, as did his residence in PJ, where a generation of Rotarian novitiates were ushered into the presence to receive his advice and injunctions about Rotary. A visit to his house, with its hushed atmosphere of solemnity, was almost like a religious occasion, recalls Tarcisius Chin. However, the real justification for the title was Menon's indisputable authority as the prime source of information about anything to do with Rotary International and its complex procedures. He was regarded as indispensable at any major Rotary gathering, particularly on such gala occasions as a District Conference or Assembly.
'The Pope's' immense and selfless service to Rotary did not
go unrecognized or unrewarded.* The KL Rotary Club made him an Honorary Member
and the PJ Club made him a Paul Harris Fellow. Royal recognition also came
when the Sultan of Selangor, as Patron of the Club, conferred upon him the Pingat Jasa Kebaktian for community service. In Malaysian
history the likes of Menon are not entirely unknown. Scribes and/or interpreters
have played major roles in the past. Did not the origins of the Tamil-Muslim
Bendaharas of Malacca originate in such a person, acting as the court interpreter
and rapporteur for the Sultan in his dealings with foreign merchants? Kulakananth
Sekhara Menon was surely Malaysian Rotary's twentieth century scribe and
Bendahara.
*The Club also recognized the contribution played
by Menon's wife, who predeceased him and was posthumously made a Paul Harris
Fellow in 1991.
Needless to say, all of the thirty-two Rotarians** who have held the presidency of the PJ Rotary Club have been men of distinction who each in his own way has made his distinctive contribution to the Rotary movement. Most are remembered for some particular characteristic or idiosyncrasy that has marked them or their tenure of office. No one, for instance, who knew the Sri Lankan Professor Eliezer failed to be impressed by his eloquence and supreme mastery of language, quite apart from his mathematical genius, and any PJ Rotarian of the seventies will instantly think of Ray Hardless (of Trebor's), the Australian, every time they hear the refrain of Island in the Sun, as well as of his propensity to put things off to the last minute. There was that very correct, stiff upper-lipped Englishman, John Henderson, who was Ray's successor, and George Wismer, the Swiss entrepreneur, noted in particular for his open-handed generosity. Rupert Goldman's generosity, on the other hand, tended to overflow. Perhaps he was the most successful fund-raiser that the Club ever knew, but he believed in panache and style so that the amount spent on raising the funds sometimes almost wiped out the proceeds of his efforts. There was also the irrepressible lawyer, Ong See Seng, now a full-blown high court judge, whose presence was immediately detectable by his booming voice and high-pitched, shrill laugh, but who has never allowed his high status to get in the way of fellowship. And one should not overlook David Ho (formerly of Beecham's) whose capacity for consuming large quantities of beer was not betrayed by his trim, slim figure.
**up to and including the incumbent President, Dr. Tarcisius Chin.
Indeed, these thirty-one Past Presidents and the incumbent President represent a good spectrum of the human personality, ranging from the very gregarious and easy going to the very serious and single minded. At one end of the scale came the earthy, street-wise businessman type personified by Yong Wah Loong and at the other end the rather Anglicized and urbane Tara Singh Gill. There was that rarity, a Hokkien - speaking Malay in the person of Abu Mansor (Lever Bros./NST) whose ready wit and outgoing personality made him the Club's favourite MC. But he and his wife came to untimely ends, caught drowned in treacherous cross-currents whilst bathing at Kuantan. Sundram and Michael Teh, memorable for many other things, will always be identified with their addiction to the rules, just as Dr Low Teong, young, energetic, forceful, will for ever be associated with his crusade for hundred percenters, and James Peter Chin and David Ho for their concern with punctuality. It is the irony of life that while Low Teong, who was quite prepared to make waves, enjoyed a relatively smooth presidency, the tactful Tara Singh, nothing if not a consensus man, had a more choppy passage. But in terms of wave-making, James Peter Chin made the largest of them all - that concerning admitting ladies as members of the Club, and it was the mild Kon Kee San who three years later was left to weep over the dissensions that this particularly delicate issue aroused.
