COMMENT | Allow me to begin with a blast from our past set in Malaysian time, not to the ancient Hindu-Buddhist time of Quedarram, Kedah, and the Bujang Valley.

We won’t be talking about the times of the Cholas, the Chulans either, when that redoubtable Tamil dynasty ruled these parts in the 10th and 11th centuries, but to the relatively recent time of Portuguese Malacca after its fall in 1511 to Afonso de Albuquerque.

Shunned by the rulers and traders of the Nusantara and further west by merchants in Cairo, Jeddah, Aden and Oman, Portuguese Malacca quickly descended into a shadow of her former self.

Her once crowded port saw the arrival of no more than a handful of neutral trading ships each year.

The Gujarati and local merchants had largely fled the port but the tough and thriving Tamils stayed on...