‘Being a dad is 24/7’, but this Malaysian dad is still happy to be one

Affendi (in black) and his family (from left) Ikke, Wan Zuraida, Zohre and Fahre (carried). Photo: Affendi Salleh

When he was in college, Affendi Salleh didn’t think he’d want to start a family. He wanted to travel the world, live a care-free life, be unburdened by commitments.

“But life is a lived cliche, kan?” he says. “I met a woman and all that changed.”

Affendi and his wife Wan Aida are now proud parents to three children: daughters Ikké, 15, and Zohré, 11 and their youngest, a boy named Farhé who is just three.

His life now, though different from how he envisaged it, is exactly the way he wants it: loud.

“Having children has completed my life. Two’s company but without a third voice, there are only murmurs and murmurs between a husband and wife can easily be reduced to silence.

“I want my life to be loud, yelled-at, chattery and augmentative and my kids give me just that, ” says Affendi, who lives with his family of five in Shah Alam.

Affendi and his likeness, Farhe. Photo: Affendi Salleh

“Ikké is the athletic one. She’s a track-and-field star, the flag bearer for Rumah Hijau, a prefect, reads Hunger Games, eats all things Korean and loves BTS. Zohré is the boombox in the family. The talker... all things loud. She’s a slime scientist, mixing my shaving cream with baking powder and glitter glue to produce the world’s softest slime. Being number two, she tries very hard not to be in her sister’s shadow.

“And Fahré is a policeman in the morning, a fire engine driver in the afternoon, a contortionist at night and a destroyer of my minimalist living room at midnight. My mum says I was like him when I was his age, ” shares Affendi openly.

An architect by profession, the 42-year-old dad works hard to provide “the usual stuff” for his children – education, insurance, savings – so they can have a secure future.

But more than that, he hopes to be able to inform them so that they make good choices throughout their lives. And so that they become good people.

He does this in his daily interactions with them, of course, but also through his musings which he fleshes out in single-panel cartoons and prose.

Although he calls them his “love letters to life” they are, quite obviously, love letters to his children. They are featured heavily, if not almost exclusively in his “passion project”.

Affendi started posting his illustrations and writings on his Facebook feed a few years ago – they got shared widely – and last December, he compiled them in a book, Gelas Separuh Penuh which he self-published (and has sold more than 1,000 copies without a distributor).

“I take orders, fill up postal forms, bubble wrap them all by myself, with a little help from my wife and kids, ” he says.

His cartoons are minimalistic but their messages – written in both Malay and English – are earnest and profound.

He writes to his children about how to be human, how to be self sufficient, how to make the best of what life hands you, how to be happy and so on.

“I think advice is important. There’s a character in the Quran named Lukman. He is not a prophet, nor a king; not a magician of any sort.

"He is a regular father. Within short passages, he gave his son eternal wisdom on how to live life... priorities in life.

“I want to be just that (for my children). A good dad guiding my kids for this life and afterlife, ” he says, plainly.

“I’ll guide them to understand truth and beauty. I’ll show them the importance of listening.

“I’ll tell them that the value of being human is how we benefit others. They must know that there are times they will fail; they just have to get up and tell themselves that failure is part of success.

“And there are times I will be there by their sides. But most times, I won’t, ” he adds.

Affendi’s drawings are an outlet for this thoughts and, perhaps, something to leave behind for his children (and readers) to ruminate.

“After two decades of working, I found I needed a different creative outlet where I can experiment freely. Where the process and result can be instantaneous. Where, unlike architecture design, I can fully control things. So I started putting up these comics and writing on my FB feed, ” he explains.

The drawings of him with his children - sometimes all three, sometimes just one of the three - always have profound takeaways.

What Fathers Day means to Affendi, in illustrations. Photo: Affendi Salleh

“These panels are about us. The characters are us, the setting is our house, the events are the daily stuff we do and the conversations are about the usual things. I just add a dose of flamboyance in the dialogue.

“It’s kind of an intensified biography that’s straddling realism and surrealism. Cheewah. Kononlah (as if).

“But, really, there’s a part of me that wants to teach through this book, so I make sure I get my points across.

“It’s about my life but there’s a universality about what I want to put across.

“So, bukanlah ini satu karya yang syok sendiri (it’s not just a vanity project), ” he explains.

Fatherhood is something Affendi has embraced wholeheartedly – he relishes trips to McDonalds with his brood “chomping on Big Macs” just as much as family holidays to Pulau Pangkor.

There isn’t one stand out moment, he says, because everything about being a father is to be cherished.

“Ikke finishing her Maze Run is just as cool as Zohre delivering her class speech on Teachers Day, ” he says.

“And anyone with children will agree that seeing a three-year-old use the potty for the first time is exhilarating, ” he says with a laugh.

Proud as he is to be a dad, Affendi isn’t fond of commemorating Fathers Day, “because it’s so broad and generic and heavily laden with signs of commercialism”.

“I don’t really know how to celebrate this one day because being a dad is a 24/7, year-round commitment.

“Fathers Day goes unnoticed in my household. Birthdays and anniversaries, yes, because those are personal.

“Besides, I don’t want my kids to remember me just once a year. Please, let me be remembered in their daily prayers, ” he says.

Check out Affendi's work on https://www.facebook.com/affendi.salleh