My name is M

Last month I only wrote 3 blogs on happiness. I feel happy about that.

Today I am writing about names. You hear all this harping about we are all one and 1 Malaysia and all that.

You see, among the Indian community in Malaysia, at least the ones in my generation and older, you cannot tell us apart.

We all share one commonality in our names ... namely, we have the same middle name.

My middle name since I was 10 days old has been a/l which is short for anak lelaki (son of in English).

In Malaysia at least, every Indian boy in my generation has a middle name a/l and every Indian girl has a middle name of a/p.

When the computer systems changed in the registration department and no longer recognised special characters, my middle name with all the other Indian boys became al and the girls became ap.

AP by the way stands for anak perempuan or daughter of.

Similarly, all Muslim boys and Muslim girls also have the same middle name - basically bin and binti.

Now it is only the Chinese that seem to be out of sync in Malaysia - not united. Maybe it is time for them to have a similar middle name as well.

I recommend that all Chinese boys have a middle name of er zhi and the girls have nui er (which again basically translates as son of or daughter of).

Or, how about we get rid of all this nonsense in Malaysia and all of us be given one single middle syllable middle name, M.

Yup, M like James Bond's boss.

M for Malaysian.

Not Indian, not Chinese, not Malay, no distinguishing between bumiputera or non-bumiputera ... but Malaysian.

Take care and be well.