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very time the students in our classroom jotted down words from the blackboard, Zatni Arbi would write nothing in his book. Sitting next to him, I was initially puzzled. He was grateful when I decided to read the words for him every time the lecturer wrote something on the board.

That was the beginning of our long friendship. Zatni had poor eyesight partly because he was an albino.

The year was 1976 and Zatni was a student from the Foreign Language Academy (ABA) in Padang, West Sumatra, who moved to the School of Letters at the University of Indonesia, which was then in the East Jakarta suburb of Rawamangun.

News came that he died of cancer on Wednesday April 25. He was 58. Zatni is survived by his wife Hanny and daughter Irene. This was one of the scenes that came to my mind upon hearing the news.

“Our dearest, dearest friend Zatni wrote to me specifically not long ago and shared his heart, his love for his wife and daughter,” says an email from a former fellow student who now lives in New Zealand.

It was a testament of how Zatni had kept tabs on his friends from his student and school days.

After graduating from the English department of the school, he worked as a researcher at the prestigious Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). Later he won a scholarship to study computer sciences at the University of Hawaii in the US.

He had nearly finished his PhD when he returned to Jakarta in mid-1990s.

“My scholarship has expired,” he said, “and there is no way I can stay longer.”

Around that time, The Jakarta Post was looking for an IT writer and Zatni was brought on board.

None of his former classmates were surprised at the move, as Zatni was one of the brightest in the faculty. By chance I found out that he was a close relative of one of the nation’s towering intellectuals. It was a decade after I first met him. The fact that he never mentioned it was a bit unusual in a country where people love to flaunt their connections with the famous.

His association with this paper was to span for more than 17 years and he turned out to be the longest contributor of the paper. He rarely missed a deadline and he was probably one of the first Indonesian IT writers who wrote in an English daily.

Through his weekly articles he would tell his readers about the strengths and weaknesses of a seemingly endless array of new products, suggest responses to possible glitches in using them and tell them about new inventions.

In later years he became an IT writer for international publications and freelance writer and translator for local and foreign companies.

IT writers were scarce back then and he was aware of the lure of gifts from publicity hungry IT companies. He regularly consulted the paper about the do’s and don’ts of a contributor. Once he won trust from IT companies and the paper, the world was at his feet. He became a globe-trotter, rubbing shoulders with IT writers overseas and owners of world leading IT companies.

This explains the overwhelming support he received from his friends when he began his chemotherapy in Singapore in 2009.

“I just can’t believe it. People are so kind to me,” he said.

Outside the IT world, Zatni was a lovable person who had a deep and pleasant voice. A great fan of classical music and good food, he was a distinguished member of the University of Indonesia’s alumni choir group (PSAUI).

“Zatni excelled in maintaining a closeness with all of his friends,” says Tetty Sihombing, a member of the group. “He has the knack of inventing activities for his friends and a gift for organizing.”

When he was still living in a student dormitory during his student days in late 1970s he founded a bikers’ club dubbed Sepeda Sehat that received warm responses from his fellow students.

His gentle demeanor was mixed with his boisterous laughter. He loved to make jokes. His closeness to friends with different backgrounds was attributable to his open mindedness and his readiness to help others in need.

Zatni seemed to have consigned the prejudices attached to one’s place of origin, race, religion or ethnicity to the dust bin.

As a devout Muslim, he was married to a Catholic Chinese-Indonesian. He often accompanied his wife to a Sunday mass, a big no-no in a country with the biggest Muslim population in the world.

“The songs and the choir group were awesome,” he would tell me after attending a Mass. He would often add that the sermon was great, as if he was a Catholic. One of his favorite songs was “It is well with my soul,” a Christian spiritual song.

At one time he was frantically seeking ways to raise funds for a prominent researcher who was his senior at the LIPI. “He can’t even afford to buy medicine,” he said referring to the researcher and the wider problem of researchers usually being poorly paid in Indonesia.

Only a few months before his death, Zatni was doing the same thing again for one of his former lecturers at the University of Indonesia who was seriously ill.

This time is was his turn to depart.