Speech is made up of words, but the voice is the sound that carries them. Sound is energy a vibration that lives inside a person. A voice reveals who someone is, even before the words are fully understood.

She had learned this long before coming to Kuala Lumpur, during the presentation-skills courses she attended. Again and again, she was reminded that a presenter’s voice mattered as much as the message itself.

Sound fascinated her. On many nights, when sleep refused to come, she would step out into the garden or onto the balcony and sit quietly, listening. The rustling of leaves as the wind passed through them, the steady squeaking of night insects to her, these were not noises but music. They formed the orchestra of the night, each sound entering at its own time, never competing, never clashing.

Sometimes, she would sit alone in the living room, the lights switched off, listening to a CD she had bought. As the music played, she would break it apart in her mind, separating each instrument, following each sound patiently. Every instrument carried its own character, its own voice separate, complete, and whole. She could hear the sitar speaking to the tabla, the tabla responding to the flute, the flute whispering to the mridangam.

They were not only talking they were dancing in her head. Different rhythms, different tones, moving independently, yet slowly finding their way back to one another. And in that moment when all the sounds merged they became a single symphony, held together in quiet harmony.

This whole experience of teaching Anjali opened up many things she had never really thought about before. How often she had taken reading for granted. She never questioned it. Once a book was in her hands, she simply began to read.

People read for many reasons to gain knowledge, to communicate, to instruct others, to be entertained, and for countless other purposes. But for her, reading had always been a form of escape. The moment she began, she was transported into another world. Everything else around her faded away noise, time, worries. For those moments, nothing else existed.

She couldn’t imagine not being able to read at all. Over the last few days, she found herself trying to imagine life as Anjali experienced it staring at words that meant nothing, symbols that refused to open themselves. She tried to picture what it must feel like to live surrounded by letters yet locked out from their meaning. Was it the same as being blind? Or perhaps worse being able to see, but not being able to enter.

The thought unsettled her. Reading was not just a skill it was a doorway. And without that doorway, how many worlds remained forever closed? At least Anjali could recognise the alphabet, even if it was still at random. That made things easier. She wasn’t starting from nothing.

The letters were there, just scattered, waiting to be gathered and understood. Other than the old Peter and Jane series, she introduced Anjali to phonics. Simple sounds. Simple patterns.

“Fat cat,” she read aloud.

“Fat rat,” Anjali followed, giggling.

“Sitting on the mat.”

It wasn’t just about sound and vocal. She used pictures too drawings of the fat cat and the fat rat sitting on the mat to give Anjali a clearer picture. Words alone were not enough they needed an image to hold on to. She watched Anjali’s eyes move from the picture to the words, then back again, slowly making the connection.

The cat was no longer just a sound. The rat was no longer just a word. They became real something she could see, imagine, and understand. With each picture, the meaning settled a little deeper. Sound, image, and word began to come together, and reading slowly made sense. She watched Anjali’s face light up every time the words clicked.

Consonants no longer stood alone vowels began to sing between them. The language slowly revealed itself, one sound at a time. It wasn’t perfect. Some days were better than others. But progress was there quiet, steady, and real. And for the first time, reading no longer felt like a wall. It felt like a path.

At first, she thought it would be simple. She had the money why not just pay someone to teach Anjali? That was how things usually worked. She contacted the tuition centre where the other children from the home attended their classes. But once the coordinator learned about Anjali about her inability to read and count they refused. No explanation. Just a polite but firm no.

“We don’t think we can handle her,” the coordinator told her gently.

“What?” she asked, stunned. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” the coordinator replied. “Do you know half of the children from the home who come to us don’t know how to read?” She stared at her.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not. You’re there, right? Why don’t you assess some of the children yourself and see?” So she did. She gathered a group of children from Standard Three and Four and handed them the Peter and Jane books. Out of ten children, only two could read up to Book Three. The rest couldn’t even get past Book 1B. They stumbled over words, guessed blindly, or simply stared at the page in silence.

“How on earth do they move from Standard One to Standard Four?” she asked one of the tuition teachers, disbelief heavy in her voice. The teacher shrugged. “Beats me. Welcome to the Malaysian education system.”

Later, she sat with one of the boys. “So Jacob,” she asked softly, “how do you get through your exams if you can’t read?” He looked at her, puzzled by the question.

“Simple, Auntie,” he said. “Most of the questions are multiple choice. So we do ini, mini, myni, moe.” Her chest tightened. Was this an isolated case? What about the other homes? How many more children were moving through the system unable to read at all?

“I see…” she whispered. Suddenly, fear crept in not for herself, but for them. For all of them. Children being pushed forward without understanding, without foundation, without a voice.

It wasn’t just sad.

It was tragic.


She then hired a private tuition teacher to come in. The teacher turned up for two, maybe three classes. After that, she stopped coming. When contacted, there were always excuses, sudden commitments, family matters, timetable clashes. Even when she offered to pay extra, the teacher declined. It became clear to her that this was not about money.

Some children were simply too much trouble. That realisation sat heavily with her. Education, she had always believed, was meant to open doors. But here was a child already being turned away not because she didn’t want to learn, but because learning would take time, patience, and effort. The next option was to hire a private tuition teacher for Anjali.

At first, everything seemed promising. The teacher arrived on time, spoke confidently, and assured her that progress would come. But gradually, the interest faded. Promises were made, but when the time came, Anjali would be sitting patiently at the table, waiting and the teacher could not be reached. Messages went unanswered. Excuses followed.

That was when she made her decision. She would do the teaching herself. If this was going to work, it had to be her own effort. This experience taught her something she would not forget: it was easy to part with money, but far harder to find someone willing to sacrifice time, patience, and energy especially for a child who needed more than quick results.

So she stayed and taught. She learned alongside Anjali

She understood, perhaps for the first time, that real commitment could not be outsourced.

“Jane likes the toy, and Peter likes the toy,” Anjali read aloud, reaching the last page of Peter and Jane 1B part of the Ladybird Key Words Reading Scheme she had been using. It was recommended by Aunt Menon, her husband’s aunt, a retired teacher from Singapore. The words were simple. The sentences short. But to her, this moment was anything but small. It marked the end of something difficult and the beginning of something possible. She watched Anjali closely the way her finger followed the line, the quiet concentration on her face, the slight lift in her voice as she reached the end of the page. For the first time, there was no hesitation. No fear. Just reading.


Why Peter and Jane? It happened during a Deepavali visit to her husband’s aunt’s place. Auntie Menon was a retired teacher, well known in the family for still giving tuition classes from her study room. While the adults sat in the living room chatting with Uncle Menon, she noticed Ash quietly follow Auntie Menon into the study. She didn’t think much of it.

A few minutes later, Auntie Menon came out, still holding Ash’s hand. She walked straight into the living room where they were sitting. “Your daughter couldn’t read,” Auntie Menon said bluntly. The words landed heavily. “Why is it so?” she continued, looking directly at her and her husband.

They glanced at each other. Truth was, they had never really thought about it.

“How old is she?” Auntie Menon asked again.

“Three… coming to four,” her husband replied.

“In Singapore, most children by the age of three can read and write,” Auntie Menon said firmly. “Why your daughter can’t? You all must start her now. Wait for what? Until she goes to kindergarten? By then it’s too late…”

“But she knows her ABC,” she tried to explain gently. “And she can count.”

“That is not good enough,” Auntie Menon said, shaking her head. “You should do more for her. Start her to read now. Don’t wait.”

She fell silent. This was a discussion she had already had many times with her husband. She didn’t want their daughter to be pressured academically, the way they had been. She believed academic achievement was not the true measure of success. She wanted Ash to grow and learn at her own pace.

Auntie Menon walked back into her study. Five minutes later, she returned with three books in her hand and placed them on her lap. “Here,” she said. Peter and Jane Books 1A, 1B, and 1C. “Use these. You can get the rest from the bookshop. This is one of the most successful reading schemes. I’ve used it myself. I have students who couldn’t read at all once I used this method, they picked it up very easily.”

That was how Peter and Jane entered her life.


“You are reading!” she exclaimed. Anjali could only smile, her eyes bright, clearly pleased with herself.

“Did you show this to Uncle Joseph?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And?”

“He said good,” Anjali replied proudly. “He said I must continue to read some more.”

“And you must,” she said, smiling back. “Next, we need to work on your maths not just any ordinary maths, but mental maths. You’ll be able to count so fast in your head that everybody will be amazed, yes?”

“Yes, Auntie.” Then she paused. “Why do I need to learn to count?” she asked. She smiled.

“Good question. I like it when you ask questions. You must learn to ask more, okay? To go out into the world and be on your own, you need three basic skills: to read, to write, and to count.”


Later, as she walked back home, she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. It wasn’t tiredness. It wasn’t sadness either. It was an emptiness a quiet, unsettling space that lingered inside her.

She didn’t know where all this would lead, but she knew one thing for certain: she had to do something with it. What that something was, she did not yet know.