RECENTLY Ramesh Veloo, chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Planters, suggested that I write about Deepavali while he was out shopping for murukku.
Trust a planter to turn a festive snack into a writing assignment!
“Who, me?” I asked.
A Malaysian Chinese writing about a Hindu festival?
Surely he could find someone better versed in its traditions. But while Ramesh was hunting for crunchy murukku, he had given me something harder to chew on. Then I thought, why not?
My ageing neurons could use the exercise, and a little cultural discovery might yield another harvest of understanding and muhibbah.
Better to keep learning than let the mind lie fallow!
More importantly, Ramesh’s suggestion awakened a memory from childhood, long before I knew much about the religious meaning of Deepavali.
It came with the sound of friends chatting, the sight of a family dressed in festive clothes, and the irresistible prospect of a very good meal.
A doorway in Section 17
Growing up in Petaling Jaya, I looked forward to Deepavali at the home of my friend Punithakumar in Section 17.
Every year, his family warmly welcomed friends of different races into their house.
I remember the generous spread of food, the festive best worn by the family and the easy fellowship among guests.
We children did not arrive armed with questions about theology.
We came because our friend had invited us, because his family made us feel welcome and, if I am allowed a confession, because the food was excellent.
The stomach, at that age, sometimes learns faster than the brain.
But the food has long been digested. What remains is the warmth.
Nobody delivered a speech about racial harmony.
Nobody asked us to prove our commitment to nation-building.
We sat together, ate together and enjoyed being friends.
We were practising muhibbah before we had learnt to give it a grand name.
Only much later did I recognise what such hospitality had given me: the confidence to enter another community’s world respectfully, without feeling that our different beliefs made friendship any less natural.
The boy at Punithakumar’s table understood little about the lamps or prayers.
The older man writing this article wanted to learn more.
Perhaps Ramesh was sending me back, by a different route, to that house in Section 17.
What the lamps tell us
Deepavali, or Diwali, is associated with rows of lights and the enduring idea of light triumphing over darkness, knowledge over ignorance and good over evil.
Its religious meanings are rich and varied, not confined to a single story.
Many northern Indian Hindus associate Diwali with Lord Rama’s return to Ayodhya after exile and the defeat of Ravana. In southern Indian traditions familiar to many Malaysian Tamils, the festival recalls Lord Krishna’s victory over Narakasura, who symbolises oppression and evil.
Other Hindu traditions place particular emphasis on Goddess Lakshmi, prosperity and renewal. Jains and Sikhs have important observances around this period, each with its own religious significance.
As an outsider to these faith traditions, I would rather acknowledge their differences than squeeze them into one convenient explanation. Respect is not the same as claiming to know everything.
Sometimes it begins with admitting how much there is to learn.
In many Malaysian Hindu homes, preparations start with cleaning, cooking and arranging decorations.
Kolam designs bring colour and welcome to the doorstep; oil lamps evoke spiritual hope.
Some families begin the festival morning with a traditional oil bath, Ganga Snanam, followed by prayers, new clothes, blessings from elders and temple visits.
And then, of course, comes the food: murukku, laddoo, payasam and family specialities passed from one generation to another.
I am reminded that a kolam deserves appreciation before anyone steps over it, while murukku is almost inviting us to break it.
One is a feast for the eyes; the other, rather noisily, for the teeth.
The kolam, too, contains layers of meaning.
Traditionally made with rice flour in some households, it can express generosity as well as beauty, since even tiny creatures may feed on the grains.
Such customs have evolved, but the thought is appealing: a welcoming threshold can extend beyond the guests we expect.
One wonders how many lessons in kindness are tucked into traditions we have previously admired only as decorations.
Yet Deepavali is not merely a colourful open house.
Behind the food and finery are devotion, family bonds, gratitude and the possibility of a fresh beginning.
One need not share a religious practice to recognise the meaning it holds for a neighbour.
Under the rubber canopy
This research also took me back to two earlier essays I wrote: Roots of Rubber, Tears of the Forgotten and The Railway of No Return.
In them, I reflected on people whose labour and suffering helped shape Malaya but whose names seldom appeared in our familiar accounts of progress.
Under British rule, many South Indians came to Malaya to work on rubber estates.
Recruitment arrangements, including indenture and the kangani system, brought labourers across the Bay of Bengal.
They planted, weeded, tapped and collected latex, often for modest wages under difficult conditions.
Their families made lives in estate housing lines, raising children and preserving languages, customs and faith far from ancestral villages.
I spent many years in plantation management, and I know how carefully estates account for yields, costs and productivity.
But the older plantation story needs a second ledger: the hands that did the work, the mothers who kept families going, and the hopes invested in children’s education.
There is no convenient column for sacrifice.
Within those lines, a temple might become a meeting place, a school an investment in the next generation, and a festival a rare break in the rhythm of work.
These institutions were not luxuries added to plantation life.
They helped make community life possible, especially for families trying to preserve a sense of home while putting down roots in a new land.
What particularly interested me this time was how Deepavali survived and flourished within those communities.
In their 1978 study, Indian Malaysians: The View from the Plantation, Paul D Wiebe and S Mariappen described Deepavali in a rubber-estate settlement as a relatively simple, family-centred occasion. Homes were prepared, special meals served, and people dressed in their best.
Relatives and friends visited one another, largely within the Indian estate community.
A film or drama sometimes provided evening entertainment.
The surroundings may have been modest, but the celebration had its own dignity and warmth.
Another account touched me even more.
In Tamils and the Haunting of Justice, Andrew C Willford, working with S Nagarajan, recorded the memories of an elderly woman at Glengowrie Estate near Semenyih.
She had arrived from India in 1938 and spent more than five decades in estate life.
When asked what she remembered most fondly, she spoke of weddings and festivals, including Ponggal and Deepavali.
Think of that: after so many years of work and uncertainty, it was the occasions when a community gathered that stayed among her cherished memories.
These accounts brought me closer to the estate families than another production chart ever could. Celebrations did not erase hardship, and we should not romanticise the old estates.
But for families with limited means, they offered belonging, continuity and a chance to make the ordinary day extraordinary.
Later, as estates changed hands, crops were converted and workers moved to towns, some of these familiar social worlds began to disappear.
The importance of a temple, school or remembered festival could become even more apparent when the estate itself was gone.
History that made readers weep
After my rubber essay appeared, Indian readers sent me moving messages.
Some remembered the stories of parents and grandparents, stories that had rarely surfaced in ordinary conversation.
One reader told me that he and his wife had cried as they recalled the struggles of their forefathers.
I had written as a Chinese Malaysian curious about another community’s past.
Yet the words had reached descendants for whom that past was personal.
I began to understand how a piece of writing might become a small bridge, carrying memories in both directions.
My other essay revisited the Burma-Thailand Railway of the Second World War.
Alongside Allied prisoners of war, Asian civilian labourers, including many from Malaya, endured coercion, hunger, illness and terrible loss.
Indian estate communities were among those affected.
Some families never received a clear account of what happened to relatives who disappeared.
I mention these histories not to cast a shadow over a joyous festival, but to acknowledge how much earlier generations overcame.
Their children and grandchildren deserve to celebrate without being defined only by suffering.
Yet remembrance can make the lamps of the present shine with a deeper meaning.
Nor is Malaysian Indian history solely the story of rubber tappers.
Indian trading and cultural connections with this region reach back centuries.
Malaysian Indians have contributed as railway workers, merchants, teachers, healthcare professionals, lawyers, scientists, entrepreneurs, artists and leaders.
Tamil, Malayalee, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati and other communities have distinct languages and traditions; their members follow different religions.
Not every Indian Malaysian celebrates Deepavali, and not every Hindu family celebrates it in the same way.
A community is always larger than the stereotypes we attach to it.
And a nation is always larger than the stories told by any one of its communities.
An open house, an open mind
We Malaysians are fortunate to have so many invitations to know one another better.
Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas, Gawai and Kaamatan each carry particular meanings, yet their gatherings offer something shared: the chance to be welcomed into another person’s life.
Still, muhibbah cannot live on festive greetings alone.
It needs curiosity between celebrations, and consideration when differences arise.
It asks us to listen before judging, to resist casual stereotypes and to teach children that a neighbour’s traditions are worth knowing, not merely photographing.
In an age of artificial intelligence, facts about almost any festival are a few clicks away.
Technology can explain the origins of a kolam or translate a Deepavali greeting.
But it cannot substitute for the trust created when a family opens its door, or the emotion when an elderly person hears that a forgotten chapter of their history is remembered.
I hope younger Malaysians will ask their elders what festivals were like before shopping malls, smartphones and social media.
They may hear of handmade decorations, treasured family recipes, neighbours sharing food and parents stretching modest budgets for new clothes.
Such memories reveal what no glossy advertisement can: how traditions and values pass quietly between generations.
Perhaps we understood less about one another’s religions as children, yet somehow knew more about being friends.
The Malaysia of my childhood was not without divisions, but at Punithakumar’s home in Section 17, friendship was wonderfully uncomplicated.
What, then, are we passing to the next generation?
Merely festive food, shopping promotions and digital greetings, or also curiosity, compassion and respect for one another’s histories?
In this quieter season of life, writing has become my modest second harvest.
Ramesh provided the nudge, plantation history offered fresh perspectives, and readers reminded me that forgotten stories still touch hearts.
Yet Punithakumar’s family had taught me the earliest lesson of all, without even knowing it.
This Deepavali, as lamps illuminate Malaysian homes, I will remember not only the traditions preserved through generations, but also a young boy entering his friend’s home in Petaling Jaya, expecting a feast and discovering something far more lasting.
The meal ended decades ago. The warmth has not.
Happy Deepavali to all who celebrate.
May we cherish our different traditions while keeping the light of muhibbah shining in our shared Malaysian home.
Joseph Tek Choon Yee has over 30 years of experience in the plantation industry, with a strong background in oil palm research and development, C-suite leadership and industry advocacy. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
