COMMENT | Last week, after my article entitled ‘My mom said mooncakes are non-halal’ was published on Malaysiakini, I received a message from a reader, Rani.

With Deepavali around the corner, Rani shared her story, which coincidentally was too similar to the scenario experienced by my friend Andrew, whose story the article was based on.

Rani wrote:

“Fa, in the past, colleagues of mine and my husband’s used to come to our house for Deepavali,” Rani wrote. “There used to be a non-stop crowd who just came for my thosai and mutton curry.

“After that, some of them began asking if the mutton was halal. Slowly, they stopped coming and started giving excuses.”

Even the colleagues who continued to visit Rani’s house stopped eating her thosai and mutton curry, and just ate cookies. Soon enough, they started to ask if the cookies were halal. Others took issue with her pet dog, which she kept in the kennel when visitors came over.

“That’s not all, Fa,” she continued. “I have been living in this same taman for 23 years. Back in those days, every Deepavali morning, I used to send my neighbours thosai, putu mayam, mutton curry and various Indian sweets. They were always delighted to receive them.

“But in the last three years, I sometimes end up going home embarrassed, with some of my neighbours refusing to accept food from a non-Muslim.”

As Rani explained, it went beyond just Deepavali. “One of the most heartbreaking experiences I had to go through was when I invited my Muslim friends and neighbours for my daughter's wedding reception two years back.

“Taking place in a hall, I catered the food and beverages from an Indian restaurant in town, but made sure that the food served was halal. Sadly, many of my Muslim friends who came didn’t wait for dinner. A couple of them decided to stay, but the rest left right after passing me the angpow.

“Having gone through all of this, I now do what most end up doing. I stopped inviting Muslims to any of my function...