any idea on how to timeout the read statement for ksh?

for bash u can use read -t option
-t timeout
Cause read to time out and return failure if a complete
line of input is not read within timeout seconds. This
option has no effect if read is not reading input from
the terminal or a pipe.

thanks in advance!

Not sure, if this is the right answer. man ksh says

I think he means
This works in the newer versions of the Korn shell like Korn93. Otherwise, Perderabo has posted examples of timing out a read by using coprocesses. Search the form on read timeout.