Living Life to the Letter
Taysail was our only window to the world; he was our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp at that time. Time flew by and I grew up and started a professional career. I joined Al Jazeera, the pioneer media vehicle where I am learning new lessons every single day. One day, I happened to visit the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters in Florida. When I saw a TV live interview with one of the astronauts from space, I asked myself: “Why don’t we become the first Arab TV station to do so?” I mean to cover the space stories, as viewers must have grown weary of the earth’s. I established contacts with some of the NASA TV station’s officials, who expressed no objection in principle. However, some technical issues are still to be ironed out. Currently, we are exploring the prospects of TV coverage from Mars, the Moon and other planets. You may soon see one of our reporters attired in an ‘extravehicular.’ I was reminded of the extravehicular or ‘space suit’ when I saw our brave Beijing correspondent, Shayma Zhou Yiyi, covering the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic from Wuhan.
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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