Living Life to the Letter Asef Hamidi | Director of News, Al Jazeera News Channel
As a little boy, I used to sit for hours on the front doorstep of our house, which flanks the village mosque, waiting for the mailman. Every time I saw him carrying his satchel, I ran towards him, filled with joy and with a big smile on my face. The mailman’s name was Tayseer, but we called him ‘Mr Taysail’. “Is there a letter for me?” I asked him every day; even if he had handed me one just an hour earlier. Sweating in the hot weather, he always smiled and answered kindly: “Forgive me. I will get you one soon.”
My admiration for Taysail is indescribable; I saw him as an example of perseverance, honesty and kindness. His joy when he delivered the mail to me was twice that of mine. As a boy, I had thought Taysail travelled to the other corner of the world to get the mail. I anxiously waited for letters from my brother or sister who were then in Kuwait. Whenever I held one of those letters in my hand, I used to pause for minutes trying to picture how it carried the thoughts, feelings and sentiments of the writer.
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