Gone are the days when kids of all races played together

I remember my days as a kid where mixing with different races was a norm. In Kulai, Johor, my first neighbour was an Indian family. Their son, Ravi and me used to play together everyday. His mom would put the puttu or the "red dot" on my forehead. After they moved, a new Malay neighbour moved in, the Majids. They had four children namely Din, Noor, Nina and Nini. We played a lot together and my parents and their parents also got on very well. I was only about 5 or 6 years old when my parents gave permission for me to follow my neighbour to Muar for a week to attend a kenduri. We trusted each other fully.

Unfortunately, it was our turn to move after several years later. My dad was posted to Perak. He was in the civil service so we had to move quite a bit.

In Perak, my first neighbours were Chinese. When they moved, a Malay family with nine children moved in. I cannot recall all their names as it was such a long time ago. I can remember Mahathir and Marzuki the most as we played with our other friends of different races everyday.

Our parents, on the other hand would sit down at their stairways to chat every evening. We also helped each other to make kueh or some snacks for tea frequently. Other times, we would teach each other on how to make simple crafts.

Thursday nights saw our house packed with Malay friends. All were here to watch Malay movies together. At that time, we were one of the very few who had a television.

Every Chinese New Year, my parents would hold an open house day and the house would be packed with Chinese, Indians and Malays. We had a lot of fun without looking at the skin colour like today.

When we had to move again, this time to Kelantan, my father's colleague's son, Azhar followed us to Tanah Merah. He stayed with us for a whole full month. We respected each others faith. He would slaughter the chicken the muslim way with prayers and we cook it, making sure it was halal for him. He didn't condemn us for praying to our God either. We were like a family.

These days, we don't see much of this scenario around. Chinese kids stick with other Chinese kids, Malays with Malays and Indians with Indians. The muhibbah spirit is lost. Just look around you closely and you can see how divived we are.

What really went wrong? Why are we worse off than before? I'll share my views on this in my next blog.