He did not know that I was present at his book launch. He read my name, among others' who were present, in the papers the next morning and asked if he could drop in to see me. He spent over an hour with me. He did indeed resemble his late father, only an inch taller and handsomer. He even had the slight Byronic limp that Sanjay had. And like his father he is a teetotaller and like him, refused tea, coffee or cold drinks: simply a glass of water. I asked him what got him going to writing poetry. 'I went to Oxford to see Christ Church College which had given me admission. I found it too huge for comfort, grey and cold. I decided against it and returned to the London School of Economics. That's when I wrote my first poem. I was only 17.' Sometimes I wish I lived alone/ and no one came by/ It would be nice/ to breathe alone/ All my thoughts in solitude/ And then it seems like being all alone/ is like being in a crowd/ my thoughts trapped in confusion/ Like a kite caught in the sky/ Imagine being caught in the sky... He read it out to me. Then added, 'Would you like to know which was the last one I wrote before this collection was completed?' I nodded. He read: Hope is the need to be surrounded/ To know that I will lose again/ Do you know that/ your eyes lean on me like the/ atrophy of season/ and that moods are fears/ before they are moods/ If the sea is strength/ why must it protect the forbidden/ It was too long/ That I asked you to destroy me/ It took me a while to see/ that surrender is not armour. There was no stopping him. He went on to reading his favourites. I will quote one: Blood shot tears/ All indulgence/ Retreating into image/ Towns always making the same mistakes/ I confess/ I am a little in love with my sin/ As I stray/ I am told/ Don't think but look/ The walk must show the way/ So there's no accountability/ A stranger is just a victim you haven't met/ That's all there is to it/ Shadows cover the area surrendered/ It's only really fear when realized alone/ Sometimes I walk the secret way/ Is it fate or is it me/ Stopping to watch the prince of wounds/ There is nothing left to understand/ You and I/ feeding the comedian his lines. I was itching to ask him the question uppermost in my journalistic mind: 'Did he plan going into politics?' I thought it would be bad manners to do so. But the way he talked about the sorry state of the country and what needed to be done left me in no doubt that he would enter politics in not too long a time. And if he does, he will give his cousins, Priyanka and Rahul, a run for all they are worth. Across borders with good writing K.S. Maniam was in India recently. A third generation Malaysian of Tamil origin, Maniam, was the first recipient of the Raja Rao Award for literature instituted by the Samvad India Foundation to honour writers of Indian origin settled abroad, mainly those in southeast Asia. I had the privilege of meeting him with some of the founding members of Samvad. I asked Maniam what languages he knew. 'I can understand Tamil but not speak it fluently. I speak, read and write Malay. The language we use at home with my Tamilian wife and two children is English.' 'How much mixing of races is there in your country?' I asked. 'Limited', he replied, 'Malays, Chinese, Indians, though they are to be found working together in offices and plantations, they tend to keep their separate identities. Marriages between Indians and Chinese are not uncommon but rarely between the two minority communities and Malays because the law requires conversion to Islam before a Muslim marries a non-Muslim. Also no new non-Muslim places of worship can be built in the country. Old Hindu temples, churches and gurudwaras are allowed to function but no new ones may be erected. There is no other kind of religious discrimination. 'Can writers in Malaysia live in middle class comfort on the royalties they earn?' 'No. All have to do some other kind of job as well - teaching, journalism, government service - whatever.' Maniam is a full-time writer. Despite having many titles to his credit and a few literary awards, he has to supplement his income by teaching English. He did only one year in a Tamil school before he switched over to English. He did a year's training to be a teacher in Woolverhampton and taught in Malay schools. Creative writing began with a collection of short stories and plays. Two novels, The Return and In a Far Country, established his reputation as a writer of fiction: both novels are taught in universities of Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. Maniam is in his early 60s. He is a stocky, swarthy man with a shock of grey hair. He lives with his wife, Saroja, son, Ramajuna and daughter, Usharani in Subang Jaya Selangor. The remarkable thing about this man is that two generations ago his grandparents emigrated to Malaysia as indentured labourers to work in tea estates owned by the English; today he teaches English to the English, Australian and Asian boys and girls. A part of this story is told in his autobiographical novel, The Return. Young Maniam has left his Tamil school to join an English medium one. His English teacher is a Eurasian woman, 'Miss Nancy'. Besides teaching them English, fairy tales and nursery rhymes she teaches boys how to use the toothbrush and paste instead of ash smeared on the index finger, the use of shampoo for the hair and soap for the body and so on. This creates tension between families which are used to the Tamil way of life and those which are becoming anglicized. The following repartees take place between Maniam's father and a neighbour: 'You stay home from now on! Don't join the riff-raff!' my father shouted from the front room. 'Whom are you calling riff-raff?' Govindan, Ganesh's father, called from his house. 'I'm teaching my son manners,' my father said quietly. 'And how do you think I raise my family? On the white man's ideas? Soon your son will be wiping his backside with paper!' Govindan said. 'It'll be cleaner than your mouth,' my father said. Maniam writes with sensitivity and has a picaresque sense of dry humour. He also paints in words the Malay countryside with great skill.