The writer Dr Kannan (right) and Dr Anuar in an undated photo in Paris where they attended a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology. — Dr KANNAN PASAMANICKAM
Datuk Dr Anuar Masduki, a much-loved husband, father, passionate and dedicated doctor, and a friend to all who knew him, passed away on March 2, 2025.
Aged 79, he was Malaysia’s most senior practising interventional cardiologist and pro chancellor of Unisel (Universiti Selangor).
Though clinically brilliant, memorials highlighted his humility and exceptional humanity. He was also remembered for his gentleness and quiet grace.
Dr Anuar served two generations of the Selangor royal family, yet treated all with equal grace. Respected for his ethics, he quietly embodied integrity and inspired trust.
Multiracial paramedics gathered to bid a fond farewell, a tribute to the kindness Dr Anuar had shown them.
For his services to the royal household, His Royal Highness, the Sultan of Selangor was present. It was Tuanku’s wish that Dr Anuar be buried in the Makam Diraja Shah Alam.
Witnessing his simple, solemn burial was a moving reminder of life’s impermanence.
I’ve known Dr Anuar for over 50 years – as my lecturer, mentor and lifelong teacher.
He was born in Sabak Bernam, Selangor on April 29, 1945 to Masduki Rais, an imam, and Hatijah Hassan. He was the second of four boys.
Datuk Salleh, his elder brother, fondly recalls childhood days spent swimming and fishing, while daughter Norma Syaneda remembers her father as a school cricketer and university tennis player.
His son, Dr Ainur Rahman, shares how “Daddy loved gardening” and would miss seeing him mowing the lawn or painting the house.
Believing education was the best inheritance, Masduki sent his sons away in their teens to attend better schools.
Dr Anuar attended the prestigious Malay College Kuala Kangsar and was among the early students accepted into Universiti Malaya’s medical faculty, where our foundation dean, Prof TJ Danaraj, recognised his potential as a skilled physician.
Dr Anuar’s wife, Datin Rohana Maimunah Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce, told us of Dr Anuar’s dedication to serving his patients. Even in his 70s, after being up at night to care for a sick patient, he would get up tirelessly early the next morning to go to work. She believed that this energy was driven by his dedication and sense of responsibility over his own needs.
Norma said that “Daddy is the only person I know who can go to work after a cup of coffee and a slice of toast and work the whole day”.
Datin recalled the simple man with simple tastes that her husband had been. Though he never went shopping for clothes (she did all the shopping for him), he was meticulous in how he was groomed and dressed – not ostentatiously but smartly.
Once up from sleep in the morning, he always made up his bed neatly. Datin believed that this was due to the regimental training in his youth at Malay College Kuala Kangsar.
Dr Anuar dressed smartly for work but felt just as comfortable in old, paint-stained clothes or a sarong hiked up to his knees while doing odd jobs at home or in the garden. Dressed as such, he was mistaken more than once by delivery men who would call him from the gate and ask “Where is your boss?”
He would always reply with a smile and never took offense.
The story of how Dr Anuar and Rohana met and married is also very heart-warming. Dr Anuar’s housemate, when he was a third year medical student, was a photographer. Dr Anuar saw Rohana in one photograph of a group of Mara college girls at a Raya gathering and was certain that this was his dream girl. However, none of his friends knew who she was or how to find her.
A search for “the girl in the photo” began and after a period of six months, she was finally found.
After he completed his final year student exchange programme in Glasgow, Dr Anuar flew to Sibu, Sarawak to ask Rohana’s father for her hand in marriage.
During their third year of courtship, Dr Anuar wrote her a letter daily. There is no doubt that among the many blessings that Dr Anuar had in his life, one was meeting and marrying his soulmate who kept him happy till the end of his days.
We will all miss Dr Anuar, especially his gentle and friendly ways. His patients will find him irreplaceable. But as all of us process our loss, we take great pride and find solace in the enviable legacy that he has left behind.
I will quote Abbi Kanthasamy, one of Dr Anuar’s old patients, who wrote a memorial about him, published in Malay Mail, the evening that he died.
Abbi wrote, “His legacy is not in words, nor the medical degrees that lined his office walls. It is in every life he restored, in every heartbeat that still echoes because of his work.”
We all also take solace in the knowledge that Dr Anuar passed on the first day of Ramadan – considered one of the most blessed days to pass on to the hereafter. God has definitely blessed Dr Anuar for the good work that he has done in this world. May God bless his soul.
