A LARGE roadside signboard pointing to a motor workshop which I chanced upon during my university days in Canada has stuck with me since.
It read, rather tongue-in-cheek: "We meet by accident!" Just such an accidental encounter happened about two weeks ago in Kuching.
The person who related this encounter did not mean for me to publicise it, so even though I had asked his permission to tell this story, no names will be mentioned.
This person, a company chief executive, was rushing to an important meeting in Petra Jaya on the other side of Kuching one late afternoon.
The rush hour did not make for a particularly smooth or speedy ride.
As he was making one final turn, he heard a thud; a motorcyclist had bumped into the side of his car, fallen onto the road and — when he got out of his car to check — the 26-year-old man was writhing in pain.
With help from passers-by, the man was helped into the executive's car and whisked to a private hospital nearby. His motorcycle was moved to the roadside awaiting the arrival of a relative. Meanwhile, the executive called to cancel his meeting.
At the hospital, the executive called for an orthopaedic specialist he knew to attend to the injured man's hand and was relieved when told it was only a superficial wound.
He paid the hospital bill of a few hundred ringgit and enquired if the man and a relative who was by then with him have had anything to eat.
The executive pressed another few hundred ringgit to the injured man who was initially too shy to accept but did so upon much insistence.
The incident was doubly moving as the executive went out of his way to aid a man in distress and did so even when he was not in the wrong in the minor accident.
The executive was acting as a humanitarian, pure and simple. The executive also took the trouble to learn about the man's background.
The latter, who hails from a rural township far from the city, only had schooling up to lower-secondary level and works in a food-processing factory. He earns slightly above the minimum monthly wage, commuting daily halfway across the city from where he lives to the factory.
The executive said he came face to face with someone from a B40 background.
His empathy was strongly kindled by recollections of his own humble beginnings when he sometimes went to school with a half-empty stomach, without any pocket money. He had thought often about quitting school to help his parents eke out a very modest living.
The story of this accidental encounter did not end here. The executive asked one of his managers to contact the injured worker and enquire about his vehicle repairs.
The manager was asked to even offer the man a job! It will be as a trainee technician outside the city, with a salary well above what he now earns and housing taken care of by the employer.
The executive and his manager are giving their potential new hire time to consider the offer. The executive believes it offers a better path to career advancement than the dead-end job of a factory worker.
"I'm struck by his honesty in not taking advantage of my generosity by claiming RM70 for his motorbike repair. I gave RM100 online to his account just now.
"A RM30 cash reward for his honesty," the executive recounted. "My turn to help within my means, regardless of creed or race." And, not for the first time, it must be added.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching
