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RETIRED High Court judge R.K. Nathan has urged Putera MIC members to set their goals very high so that even if they did not quite reach their target, they would have achieved something.
Nathan, who was addressing 300 Selangor Putera MIC members in Kuala Lumpur recently, told them about his early days.
He said he was inspired to take up law after seeing Englishmen dressed in lawyer's robes, complete with wigs, rushing to court as he was on his way home from St John’s Institution in the early 1950s.
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Treasured advice: Nathan (right) studying a document shown by Selangor Putera MIC chief S. Kamaleswaran. Looking on are Putera MIC chief coordinator P. Kamalanathan (partly hidden) and secretary Mahaganapathy Dass (second from left).
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“I set my goal then that I would become a lawyer. After completing the ‘O’ Levels, I told my father that I wanted to study law but my father, who was a clerk, said he did not have the money.
“When I was in Form Six, there was an elocution contest but I was not considered. So I decided to train on my own with the help of a teacher.
“I managed to win the elocution contest and the following year, had the honour of being appointed a prefect, a post usually reserved for students whose parents made donations to the school,” he said.
He later attended a teacher-training course in Liverpool and was posted to a rural school in Dungun, Terengganu upon his return.
Nathan never forgot his ambition of becoming a lawyer. He sat for an entrance examination for mature students wishing to study law at the University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore in 1960.
Informed that he was placed second and offered a place to study law he rushed to Kuala Terengganu to get approval from the state education director but was told to pay back RM10,000 before taking up the course. So, Nathan studied law part-time and qualified as a lawyer in 1969.
Nathan called on youths not to waste the facilities and opportunities they had.
Earlier, Putera MIC coordinator P. Kamalanathan said about 3,100 youths had signed up as members since its inception in February.
Selangor Putera MIC chief S. Kamaleswaran said various programmes would be held for the benefit of the members as well as the Indian community.
“We are also planning for an Internet bloggers workshop for Indians in Kuala Lumpur next month,” he said.
