I am the son of Taufik Rahman bin Mahlan. We don't always get along with each other, but he is still a hero to me. Better than any superhero, he's real. I remember when I was still in elementary school, my mom enrolled me in an English course, where the teacher once asked who my idol was. I answered, "My dad." She asked, "Why?" I said, "Because he's clever." Well actually not only clever, my admiration to my dad that time also revolves around his very good handwriting :) and his talent in arts: visual (I always envy his ability to draw and he's also a photographer) and musical (while not an expert, he can play several instruments alright).
My dad is always there when I need him. When I was working on my final project as the requirement to get my degree in college, my dad was practically my professor, providing me helpful advice more than my official ones. Currently I am in the middle of a very ugly chaos, and he is there struggling with me as well. To keep me sane, he thought I need a pleasant distraction and got me an electric R/C helicopter to play with:
It's a mini 3-channel coaxial-blade electric R/C helicopter (it's around 20 cm in length). A toy, but it took me a while to be able to control it properly. I've always wanted a R/C that flies, but they were expensive and very hard to play. Now that the Chinese made these somewhat durable little electric helis, well... it's basically childhood dream come true! :D
I keep the helicopter with me (I live in a different city far away from where my parents are), so my dad could not play with it although we know that he is fascinated by the toy as well. That's how my sister and I started to hunt the perfect R/C helicopter for his birthday present. We ended up with this one:
It's a medium-sized 4-channel single-blade electric R/C helicopter (the picture above is with the training gear attached, notice the pencil as the scale reference). We wanted something more advanced, and this one suits pretty well. It's still a toy (not even hobby grade I guess), but it resembles the real thing far better than mine and can be flown outdoors conveniently. Being able to do all the movements a 3-channel R/C helicopter does, a 4-channel R/C helicopter can also do the right and left cyclic rolls. We love it!
My dad's broad horizon along with his sound understanding about so many things is clearly his outstanding quality. But no less important is his attitude towards life. Probably that's how he got to the general director position of the company he worked with until he decided to retire. Having a professional life myself, I know for sure that getting there is nowhere easy. Being there might even be worse! I am not sure how to describe this and I think it would be nice to hear his side of the story. So he has this blog on Kompasiana, with a lot of interesting posts. This particular one is a brief autobiography of himself. You might know him better after reading it.
When I was small, I always said I wanted to be an engineer, because my dad is one. Now, I am one, although not nearly as good as him. But being an innocent child I was at one time, I thought I'd ask my dad what he wanted me to become. I was expecting that his answer would be, "I want you to be an astronaut" :) or something like that. Indeed, his answer was, "I want you to be a good person." I was confused at the time and went speechless... Now that I know more compared to the innocent me back then, I still go speechless everytime I remember his answer to my question at that moment.
Wanting to be like him is a high aim for me, so at least I guess I'll try to find out how to be a good person anyway. Thx, Pa!
