An amusing story tells of two pupils who once climbed the wall of their school and landed on the street to find they were meeting face to face for the first time. The small escapees then introduced themselves with the first saying his name was Winston Churchill and the second Bernard Shaw. Years later the first boy became the most famous British politician while the second is well known as philosopher and writer. The story indicates that it is not necessarily true that clever students will become famous when they grow up. School is one thing while practical life is something different.
The most important certificate that any one can obtain is the one earned through exercising practical life. This is because intelligence is not confined to one area. A student may be clever and intelligent in his or her studies. We formerly called such a student a memorizer — the one who learns by heart. Once this student is out facing real life, he soon discovers that life is not something like a book to be memorized and that events and people keep changing every day. To face real life you need to enjoy a different type of intelligence, a practical scientific approach as well as the ability to analyze, draw conclusions and thus succeed.
A second example is a failing student whom everybody predicts will be a failure in life. This is illustrated by the case of Russian President Vladimir Putin who stormed his way into the Kremlin in a short time. Russian newspapers disclosed that Putin was an average student and never scored high marks except in history exams.
Not only that, Putin was a troublemaker, always fighting and disturbing class. He used to score zeroes in drawing and his teachers expelled him from class a number of times. This menacing student later became the undisputed leader of Russian, a country which despite the disintegration of the Soviet Union is still considered the second strongest nation in the world after the United States.
Perhaps none of Putin’s clever and gifted schoolmates who scored the highest marks in final exams and were admired by their parents and teachers and who are now working as engineers, doctors or university professors has ever considered sitting in the president’s chair.
Succeeding in school does not necessarily mean you are going to succeed in real life. At the same time, we do not advise students to copy Putin’s example and then dream of becoming leaders in their countries.
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In the novel, “A Tear Drop on the Iceberg,” Muhammad Abdullah Attar portrays the feverish journeys of a young Saudi in his desperate search for ways to soothe the pains of an unfulfilled love and to find a healing balm for a heart battered by shocking upheavals in his love life.
After his schooling in Damascus, Khalid, the hero of the story, continues his education at Beirut University where he first meets his cousin Ayeda. It is a turning point in his life. They are mutually attracted and soon realize that they are meant for each other. Soon his heart is broken when he learns that her father plans to marry her off to a rich but dissolute young man. She does not have the strength to challenge her parents and break loose from the grip of traditions to go with her lover. Depressed and unable to cope with the realities, Khalid leaves Beirut for London and Switzerland and later to the United States.
Constantly traveling and devoting his time to academic pursuits, he manages to forget his painful past. Moreover, he succeeds in developing a special attachment to an American girl, Ann, his colleague in London. His relations with her soon develop into a profound love and eventual marriage followed by her embracing Islam. However, calamities seem to follow him wherever he goes for he is shocked out of his happiness following the birth of their son by Ann’s sudden death. Ann’s mother Jacqueline, who also embraces Islam, looks after the baby.
Finding it impossible to continue living in London, associated as it is with Ann’s memories he soon leaves for the United States where he again finds refuge in academic pursuits. He completes his doctoral thesis and teaches in a university, writing articles and books defending Islam against the Zionist propagation.
During his busy life in the US, he is drawn to a Lebanese student, Hind. Their friendship soon develops into a powerful love affair. However, she refuses to marry him before getting her parents’ consent.
Deciding to spend his vacation in Saudi Arabia, one day he comes across Ayeda, his first love. She confesses to him that her love for him has only intensified as the years passed and now she is willing to get a divorce from her present husband, whom she cannot love, and marry Khalid if only he gives the green signal. He loses all his peace of mind because he still loves Ayeda but not as passionately as before. The passing years have healed the old wounds. Yet the smoldering embers of his love have the potential of becoming a wildfire.
On the other hand, Hind is trying to persuade her parents to agree to the marriage with him. He cannot think of abandoning Hind at this point.
While flying back to the US, he has a stopover at Beirut where he accidentally meets with an old friend of his father’s. The friend invites him to a dinner where he has a surprise meeting with Hind. She happens to be the daughter of his father’s friend. Khalid tells him his desire to marry her and indeed, they marry.
They newly-weds return to the US where they have a very happy married life. Years pass in the course of which two children are born.
Several things happen during this time. Ayeda’s husband is killed in a plane crash in Switzerland and she lets Khalid know again that she is still waiting for him.
In the meantime, Hind grows nostalgic and wants to visit her parents in Beirut. Khalid cannot allow her to travel at this time to Lebanon where an ugly civil war is raging. Finally, he agrees to risk a journey as she is bent on going there. His worst fears become real. She and the children are caught in a cross-fire between the warring factions. He returns to the Kingdom burdened by the memories of his tragic love but perhaps sustained by a feeble flicker of hope.
The hope is realized, for Ayeda is waiting there to welcome him. Thus the story comes to an end.
This typical melodrama is fit for a film or TV serial as it does not throw any complex riddles or challenge the reader.