Our friendship began simply: three young medical students sharing a hostel, a canteen and plenty of free time.
More than 40 years later, Dr Nazli, Dr Teik Guan and I – Dr Vijay – are still friends. We are Malay, Chinese and Indian, from different backgrounds and parts of Malaysia. Our careers took us in different directions, we lived in different countries and there were long periods when we were apart.
Yet somehow, we remained on the same frequency.
We met during our matriculation programme at Universiti Sains Malaysia's Minden Heights campus in Penang. All three of us had attended residential schools, and perhaps that had already taught us to live comfortably with people who were different from us.
We ate, studied and travelled together. Looking back, our friendship was also an informal education in Malaysian culture. We learned about one another's religious practices and traditions.And, like millions of Malaysians, we shared an almost universal passion: durian.
During our university years in Kelantan, we sometimes travelled all the way to Terengganu simply in search of good durians.Medical school was demanding, so we shared notes, books and past-year questions.
There was competition, but it was healthy competition. If one of us scored better, the others were genuinely happy. If someone attended a useful revision class, the other two were told about it.
There was no hiding information in the hope of gaining an academic advantage.
And whenever we encountered something we did not know, there was one reliable solution.
“Let's ask Gudang". Gudang was Teik Guan's nickname.
It means “warehouse” in Malay.
He was well read and seemed to have an answer for almost everything.Money never became a measure of our friendship.
When Teik Guan acquired a second-hand Honda Accord, registration PY 7733, it became our transport to hospital, town, dinner and wherever three young medical students wanted to go. We simply shared the expenses. There was never any scorekeeping.
One of our happiest memories was a six-week elective posting at Ipoh General Hospital. We stayed together at Wisma Getah, followed ward rounds, observed operations and learned from the late Datuk Dr Borhan Tan in Orthopaedics. Those six weeks gave us memories that have lasted a lifetime.
After graduation, our medical careers diverged. Nazli entered private practice, Teik Guan pursued paediatrics and paediatric cardiology before establishing his practice in Brunei, while I remained in government service and eventually became Head of Orthopaedics at Sultan Abdul Halim Hospital, Sungai Petani.
Distance changed, but friendship did not. Today, our WhatsApp group has exactly three members. We discuss medicine, family, current affairs, food and jokes, and try to meet once or twice a year.
When one of us needs help, the others simply show up. That, perhaps, is what friendship means after four decades: consistency, trust and care.
Our careers as doctors reinforced what we had already learned as students: that race, religion and background do not determine who deserves compassion.
Treating patients and working with colleagues from every community taught us to see the individual before the category, a lesson our friendship had given us long before we entered the wards.
As Malaysia celebrates Merdeka in 2026, perhaps that is the message we would leave with the next generation:
Malaysia's strength is not that we are all alike. It is that, despite our differences, we can still choose to stand together.
And sometimes, the simplest expression of Malaysia is three old friends sitting over teh tarik — still laughing, still talking, and still on the same frequency.
