Guess What? Tubagus Bachtiar Rifai

Guess What? Tubagus Bachtiar Rifai

A parent's love sometimes unintentionally brings trouble to
their children, but noted agriculture expert Tubagus Bachtiar
Rifai never thought it would lead to the extreme: Crocodiles.

"Once a week I used to contact my son who was on duty on Buru
Island from the radio at the Defense Ministry," said the former
head of the Indonesian Science Institute.

His son Firmansyah, a medical doctor, was posted on the island
for political prisoners in his early professional years during
the 1960s.

"When he told me and his mother that we could just call him
once in two weeks we were so happy," he said, "We thought he had
begun to settle down."

But they were quite wrong. "He had very different reasons. It
turned out that every time we called him he had to cross a river
full of crocodiles." This, said Rifai, was very difficult to
envision for an elderly citizen in Jakarta.

"I could only imagine crocodiles in the zoo," said Rifai, 69,
enjoying a reunion last week with another former head of the
institute, Samaun Samadikun. (anr)