When Peter Varghese first came to Malaysia two years ago and started making his presence felt at diplomatic functions, many thought that the diplomat of Indian origin was representing one of the Asian countries.

But Varghese, who is in his 40s, was actually from Australia, a country with a 'white' identity. He has just assumed the post of his country's High Commissioner to Malaysia.

Peter Varghese's life makes an interesting story.

His parents hailed from Kerala, India and migrated to Kenya where they were blessed with nine children, Varghese was the eighth.

In 1962, the family migrated to Australia when he was only eight and when race was still a factor in Australia's immigration policy a legislative provision that can be traced back to 1901 to stop the influx of `Asiatics' and 'coloureds' who were seen threatening job opportunities of locals.

"My father took the view that his kids would have a better future in Australia. But to go to a country which formerly had a White Australia policy, he obviously made a judgement of the future which turned out to be a good one.

"When I look back at it, I was thinking that it was a very high-risk strategy," Varghese laughed. "But it worked out very well in the end."

It could not be more true. For a long time, non-European immigrants were required to reside in Australia for 15 years before they could become citizens. This was until 1966 when the policy was changed so that they could become citizens after five years, the same for Europeans.

Then in 1973, race was scrapped off from immigration law and eventually led to an increase in the number of new comers. Today, almost one in four of Australia's 19 million people came from overseas.

The child

Looking back, Varghese said as a child, he did not feel a great deal of racism when he first came to Australia, though there were "isolated incidents".

"But you will get that in any country. It is striking how little there was the few cases you encounter in Australia," he said.

He conceded that Australian history is replete with racism and that "a lot of historical baggage of Australia on the question of race is not very inspiring" but added that interpersonal acceptance has always been there.

"At the individual level, Australians will accept someone for who they are almost immediately. If you make a commitment to Australia, the acceptance then is even more forthcoming," he said.

Two other things had helped his family to adapt to the new environment in Australia back then English as their first language and their Catholic background.

"Being Catholics gave us an immediate network in Australia through going to church on Sunday and attending a convent school.

"All these made the adjustment to Australia much easier though we sort of expected it to be a lot more difficult than it was. I think if we did not speak English and not have the common bounds of religion, it might have been a lot more difficult," said Varghese.

Despite still having memories of his childhood days in Kenya, Varghese said he had not been back but would like to visit the country when the opportunity arises.

The adolescent

In early 1977, the 21-year-old Varghese graduated from the University of Queensland in History. He wanted to become an academic but "the prospects of finding a job in the university was not all that good at that time".

Instead he joined the public service which was conducting a recruitment, not for diplomat but for civil servant training the foreign service had frozen its recruitment that year and the year before. Fortunately, the freeze was lifted at the end of the year.

"So I applied for a position with the foreign service and they were silly enough to offer me a job. I took it from there," he quipped.

"I would love to say that I had a lifelong ambition to be a diplomat and that it was the only thing I ever wanted to do but it is not the case. The explanation was easy, it was a lack of options," he added.

But jokes aside, Varghese perhaps knew that he was perfect material to pursue a diplomat career with his "international upbringing that had three countries (India, Kenya, and Australia) wired into my history".

And he has since found great joy in the mobility that comes with the job mobility in terms where he lives and works as well as issues he deals with.

"You change jobs every couple of years so sometimes you do trade one year and nuclear non-proliferation the next.

"I don't find picking up issues particularly difficult. It is intrinsically interesting to do that," he said.

Since 1979, Varghese has been a career diplomat and has served in Vienna, Washington, and Tokyo. But he was not abroad all the time, he had also held several senior positions in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.

His wife, Margaret, who he has known since university days, is also working in the Australian public service. They couple have a son.

Having served in many countries, Varghese however said he did not acquire that many tongues. "I am not a great linguist. I speak a bit of German from the three years I spent in Vienna. I may have attempted to learn Japanese but it was not all that successful.

"I knew about 1,000 Kanji characters initially but now I think I remember only three of them," he said.

The man

In 1996 , Varghese was appointed to head a secretariat to draft the government's first ever White Paper on its foreign and trade policy. The document spelt out the general framework for the two areas, the interests of Australia and how to achieve them. It is now the foundation stone for the country's foreign policy.

Then from 1998 to 2000, he was made chief of the International Division under the Prime Minister's Department, a unit responsible for advising the premier on foreign policy, trade and defence issues.

It was during these two years of working for John Howard that Varghese met more national leaders of different countries than he did in the previous two decades.

The most unforgettable one? "Nelson Mandela.. The meeting with him stands out as genuinely a privileged one. He was someone whom you could immediately sense a certain aura of greatness in the way he carried himself and dealt with people."

Then in Feb 2000, Varghese was made the Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia on a three-year term. Prior to that, there were two brief visits to the country the first when he took a year off in the early 1970s after high school to travel around and the second, when he attended a conference in Kuala Lumpur in 1996.

"The contrast between Kuala Lumpur in 1973 and 1996 was just staggering. The difference that struck me after a very long gap was the extent of the physical development of the city, the infrastructure, the architecture, and especially the tall buildings."

Most liveable capital

"I happen to think that Kuala Lumpur is the most liveable capital in Southeast Asia. It offers all the comforts of any Western city with all the colours and atmosphere of being in Asia. It's a pretty good combination," he said.

At hindsight, Varghese knew that though he probably did not start off with an ambition to be a diplomat but after all these years, he is very much hooked on to the job.

"I have been doing it for 23 years now. As a diplomat, you pick up the habit to understand key issues on any given field and working out what the Australian interest is before you take it from there. That is terrific," he said.

But he did not rule out the possibility that he may become an academic some day. "One thing I have learned from life with the foreign service is that you never plan anything more than 12 months ahead."

Being a non-European who is now representing Australia, Varghese said one of the many strengths of the country is multi-culturalism.

"The story of Australia since the Second World War is that it has a strong basis to continue to thrive as a multi-cultural society. There is no use having the ideology of openness and freedom but at the individual level, people aren't going to accept others," he said.

And Varghese's story, is one that testifies to what multi-culturalism ought to mean.