Octogenarian Rahamathullah still going strong

By Faris Arakkal

AGE has not dulled his wits or sapped his energy.  At 80, award-winning teacher ES Rahmathullah is as enthusiastic and active as ever.

In fact, he says, old-age diseases have helped him settle down and fight back his loneliness. He keeps himself busy by getting more involved in his hobbies – of collecting coins and currencies and of keeping scrap books.

The scrap books have indeed grown and now count 25. They are full of news articles he has cut out from newspapers. He cuts out “interesting” news articles and human interest stories and sorts them under such topics as disaster, human interest stories, school youth festivals, Thrissur Pooram and so on.

As a teacher, Rahmathullah had a distinguished career. In 1982, he was one of six teachers to have received the national award from the then President Giani Zail Singh.  He got the state award a year earlier.

His teaching career began in 1964 at the Government Model LP School in Mala and continued until 1988 when he retired as a head master from the same institution.  

Not only as a teacher, but he also excelled as an exhibitor at the school.  Every show there sported a good collection of coins and currencies from his private pool and this made the institution stand out.

He started compiling news articles in 2008. Despite his advancing age, he still religiously cuts scraps of news and pastes them in different shapes and sizes. He has dedicated an entire room for the purpose.

He has named one file as Malayude Muthu to keep every detail K Karunakaran, who represented Mala in the state assembly for several years. Rahmathullah holds him in special esteem not least because he received the teachers’ state award from the leader.

Rahmathullah is delighted that Kanurakaran’s son, Muraleedharan has requested for the scrap book.

His other hobby of coins and bank notes collection began in his childhood. Now his collection includes coins and currencies from more than 150 countries. They include coins of Thiruvithancore era and the Pallavara period.

Surprisingly, not one of them was purchased. He gathered the treasure from friends and through exchanges.

“Study aids help students learn better”, remarks the veteran teacher. Even now, students from various schools seek him out to borrow exhibits. He doesn’t disappoint them but makes them promise to return the items after use.

Besides teaching, Rahmathullah was good at singing as well. He puts this skill to good use to attract students to the usually boring Sahitya Samajam functions.

Rahamathullah now lives at his home at Mala. He is trying to compile a scrap book on state youth festivals and wants to hand it over to public instruction director APM Mohammed Hanish during the next event, due to be held in Thrissur.