Najib dedicates ‘pantun’ to Anwar after hospital visit

IN accordance with Malay custom, if a person recites a pantun (poem) to you, it is appropriate to respond likewise.

Yesterday, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak dedicated a pantun to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in response to the PKR adviser’s earlier pantun to him.

The Umno president said Anwar had read a pantun to him after he visited the PKR leader in hospital recently.

“I visited him when he was indisposed on the basis that we are old friends,” he said in his address to the Umno General Assembly 2017.

However, Najib said, his good intentions were mocked in the form of a pantun.

“So, this is my response. Saudara (brother) Anwar, please listen,” he said before delivering his pantun:

“Burung merpati terbang sekawan (Doves fly in a flock)

Hinggap seekor di atas dahan (One perches on a branch)

Kita sahut ‘lawan tetap lawan’ (We acknowledge ‘a fight is still a fight’)

Di pilihanraya bertarunglah seperti anak jantan (At the polls, we fight like men).”

On Nov 17, Najib and his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor visited Anwar at Hospital Kuala Lumpur, where he was recuperating from laparoscopic surgery.

Anwar had reportedly penned a pantun, which read:

“Tuai padi antara masak (Harvest the padi as it ripens)

Esok jangan layu-layuan (As tomorrow, it may wilt)

Ziarah kami antara nampak (Come visit while you can see us)

Esok pilihanraya lawan tetap lawan (Tomorrow we still fight at the polls).”