It is not often that your teacher is also your friend. Razak Osman was one of those teachers who made friends easily. And he had many friends, including me.

Cikgu Razak, as he was known to everyone, died peacefully on the night of Oct 25 aged 78 at his daughter’s house in Kota Damansara. He had been unwell for a while.

On Oct 26, the president of the King Edward VII School Old Boys Association Mohaideen Ishack informed me of Razak’s death. Two former classmates, Shahoran Johan Ariffin and Aziz Salleh too messaged me.

The last I saw Razak was in March 2019, just before Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, when we had a long chat at his Puchong house and he narrated his life story.

We used to phone each other now and then but due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the movement restrictions, we didn’t meet. The last time I spoke to him, he sounded weak.

In an earlier conversation, Razak told me he missed my wife’s thosai. For several years prior to the pandemic, he and his lovely wife Fawziah Nurudin would visit me on Deepavali Day for thosai and vegetarian curry.

Razak was a talented man. He painted well, which is why he was an art teacher; he was excellent at the joget and ballroom dances; and he sang both Malay and English songs beautifully and performed at various functions with his band.

For many years he was also part of the Kumpulan Keronchong Seri Lukisan and he produced Malay dramas for television after he left teaching.

Razak was the type who enlivens every gathering or party; the type who can dance with ease into friendship with people of any age group; the type who can crack jokes and ease a tense situation.

Which is why for years he was the master of ceremonies at the annual dinner organised by the King Edward VII School Old Boys Association. We loved his jokes and his positive personality.

Razak was the sixth of seven children born to Osman Ibrahim and Wan Chik Daud. Osman was well known in Taiping, Perak, as he owned the famous Osman Bakery.

Razak studied until Standard Four at Sekolah Melayu Assam Kumbang, before being transferred to the special Malay class at King Edward VII Primary School.

Former minister Ling Liong Sik was his classmate until Form Three at King Edward VII Secondary School and they would go hiking up Maxwell’s Hill and swimming at the Burmese Pool together with other boys.

“School was fun. Students of various racial and religious backgrounds mixed freely. There was no feeling of ‘I’m Melayu, you are not’. Teachers were colour blind at KE VII school.

“Today, I look at the school near my house and see that the boys of different ethnicities don’t play or mix with each other like we used to do. And I sometimes hear of teachers being biased. It’s so sad,” he told me during that long chat at his house in March 2019.

He said in the 50s to the late 70s, people didn’t feel they were separated by race or religion. “If you go to their house, they won’t serve what you don’t eat. It was not because I was Razak the Muslim but just because I was Razak. I never experienced racial discrimination.”

After finishing Form Five, Razak became a temporary teacher at KE VII and later at a school in Lenggong. In 1964, he studied at the Language Institute before being posted to St Thomas School in Kuantan to teach Bahasa Melayu.

Razak was sort of a rebel in his younger days. When his transfer to Taiping was rejected two years later, he packed his bags and left Kuantan in a huff. He wanted to be with his mother as his father had just died.

He then went to meet the Perak chief education officer and managed to land a posting at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Doktor Burhanuddin in Taiping, where he taught English.

“They didn’t know English at all. I had a tough time so I thought why not teach them to sing. So, I wrote the song ‘O My Darling, Clementine’ on the blackboard and taught them how to sing it.

“I used the broomstick in the classroom to conduct the singing, and explain the words. The headmaster walked up and glared at me furiously but I continued, and he strode off.”

Soon, however, his unconventional methods showed results and his students began speaking in English.

“I told them ‘if you don’t learn English you are nothing’. I told them they must learn it to further their education and do well in the world. Later, I met one of the girls I had taught and she came up to me and spoke in good English. I was pleased.”

In 1969, he was posted to KE VII where he taught Bahasa Melayu and later art.

“You can’t play the fool under principal Mr Long Heng Hua. He was a no-nonsense administrator and that is why teachers during his time were good.

“He understood my discomfort with rules and left me alone as long as I could produce results in my art classes,” Razak recalled.

Art came naturally to Razak and he sold paintings even while still a student, including to the local army officer’s mess. This self-taught artist was the chief examiner for art and craft in Perak for Form Three, and a member of the panel which set questions for the Form Three and Form Five art exam papers in the late 70s and early 80s.

In 1984, after Mr Long retired, Razak decided to quit teaching and go into business, especially as the new principal was rigid about following rules and keeping teaching records.

Razak then began producing dramas for RTM and TV3. Later, he went into the lucrative business of publishing and supplying school text books, but retired after 15 years.

I would be remiss if I didn’t recount some of the tales that Razak used to tell because it shows the jovial, fun-loving person that he was.

When he was in Form Two, several older girls and boys in his kampung were talking about actresses. One of them mentioned Jane Mansfield and soon the talk gravitated to the size of her breasts.

“Each of us had to guess and the one who got it correct would get to go to the dance hall for free. I said 44 because I had read about it in Weekender magazine. Those days, magazines mentioned the vital statistics of actresses.

“When they checked and found I was correct, the girls paid for my entrance to the Paradise dance hall.” Soon he became very popular with the girls in his kampung and got invited every time they went dancing.

“It was not because I was handsome, Kathi. It was because I could dance well. I was nimble on my legs,” Razak told me.

In fact, just seven years ago, those attending the wedding of his friend’s daughter in Kuala Lumpur were so mesmerised by Razak and his wife dancing the chachacha that everyone stopped dancing to watch this couple. Razak and Fawziah only realised this when the music ended and everyone clapped.

Here’s another story he told me: Once, in Form Two, he drew on the blackboard the picture of a temporary teacher who had studied at Anderson School Ipoh, a rival of KE VII, being chased by a huge tiger. The teacher marched Razak to principal JEB Ambrose.

After telling the teacher to leave, Ambrose asked the boy to explain.

“I said ‘Sorry Sir. He is from Anderson School Sir. We are Tigers Sir.’” KE VII students are known as Tigers and the school emblem has a picture of the tiger on it.

Warning Razak not to repeat it, Ambrose let him go. As Razak walked away, he noticed a smile on Ambrose’s face.

As a teacher, he got along so well with the boys that they’d point out some beautiful girl to him and he’d join them in admiring her.

He was equally at home with royalty. Razak would often accompany the then Sultan of Perak, Sultan Idris Iskandar, who ruled from 1963 to 1984, on some of his trips. He would, for instance, put up in The Box bungalow on Maxwell’s Hill with the sultan or accompany him aboard his yacht.

Razak had a huge collection of lamps from various countries. One of his rooms is filled with them.

“Once when the whole country experienced a blackout, I had so many lamps but no oil to light them up,” he told me.

Those who knew Razak will say he lit up their lives with his charm, wit and jokes. Farewell, my Cikgu friend.