Second Guess Me

"Melayu ke?"

There I was, about to formally introduce myself and present this person with my business card, a set of protocol-friendly greetings and pleasantries in mind, when she asked me that question. And it stops me, for a moment.

Here we are, at an event, trying to build bridges and all of that, and here she is wondering what race I am? Why? Does it even matter?

Wow.

Does that mean she was kinda checkin' me out?

How flattering.

While I would have loved to regal her with tales of how, a few hundred years ago, my Northern Indian ancestors couldn't keep it in their pants and had to, just had to end up shacking up with various ladies of various ethnicities (apparently, I even have Turkish ancestry, dating back from the 1700s), before migrating to Penang or whatever and ending up settling down in Malaya, in the late 19th Century A.D.

However, it seemed frivolous and entirely pointless to say anything like that, and given the circumstances, wholly unwarranted.

Imagine, I could be on some hill in Pakistan minding sheep or in Bollywood acting in some low-budget drama, but no. No, here I am working in publishing.

Lovely, ain't it, how one hop in the sack can influence the future of the human race.

"Ye, saya Melayu. By the way, my name is Suffian and I write for FHM. Nice meeting you, but I have to go now. Bye."