Are you Christian or Serani? Are you Indian or what?

Being often faced with this unnecessary line of questioning has made me somewhat sensitive when it comes to the issues of race and religion.

I am Indian and Hindu and rather baffled as to why it is anybody’s business to get a verbal confirmation from me.

Yet friends (and foes), classmates, teachers, and colleagues have asked me these tactless, inquisitive questions for as long as I can remember.

Fuming, I once complained about this to my father, who rather than share my indignation, was amused at my predicament and immediately supplied me with a handy retort that I use until today.

I am Malaysian, Indian in ethnicity and Hindu by religion.

Unfortunately, some people have set ideas on how a woman, who is Indian in ethnicity and Hindu by religion, ought to appear.

When I was younger, I sported a pixie cut with natural hues the colour of “coconut husk”, wore shorts, and didn’t see the need to display my religion with holy ash (vibuth) plastered across my forehead. Neither was I seen in temples by the nosy who kept a lookout for me.

After all, the temple I was told, is in your heart. And a little bit of mystery is intriguing.

Sadly, Malaysians are old hands at stereotyping people by race, religion and appearance. Blame it on the British’s evil policy of “divide and rule” that we happily inherited and which, staying true to its original intentions, has expertly divided us ethnically and in terms of religion, to this day.

To add insult to injury, I had to endure this stereotyping from myopic Indians themselves.

I soon became a thorn in the side of the “Indian monitors of faith” in campus. Fielding a daily dose of snide comments for not wearing the Indian costume (salwar khamez) on Fridays, not sporting the bindi on my forehead and not going to the temple, became a norm for me.

Apparently slamming a bindi on the forehead made one more Indian besides making a silent but obvious proclamation to the world that one had strong religious affiliations. As far as the “Indian monitors of faith” were concerned, openly affirming one’s Hindu-ness was all-important.

Since I disregarded their rationale, I was shunned by my fellow countrymen. To me, the salwar khamez and bindi were fashion statements, period.

I also once caused a near scandal when one of these “monitors” chanced upon me serving something he disapproved of at the campus cafeteria.

Yes, I stand before you readily admitting that I was indeed hungrily dishing some delicious rendang onto my plate. However, thoroughly horrified at my “misdeed” was a well-dressed Indian man, who standing behind me in line, anxiously asked if I knew what on earth I was about to eat.

It is rendang, I said, not wanting to share my portion of it with this stranger. Was this guy daft?

Shaking his head woefully, he disdainfully uttered, “You are eating your mother.”

Wait a minute! I was pretty sure my mum was safe and sound at home, probably tucking into her lunch at that very moment. And I was doubly sure I was no cannibal or a willing participant in matricide. This guy was crazy.

He looked at me as though I was a child and repeated, “You are eating your mother,” in as foreboding and dramatic a tone as he could muster.

Then it dawned on me, like a tonne of bricks falling on my head, that I was about to chow down on beef.

Most Hindus consider the killing of cattle and the eating of beef a sin as bovines are regarded as sacred among Hindus. Yikes, I had to think fast.

As I made my getaway, my quick rejoinder was, “This beef is Malaysian, not Indian.”

The guy stood there speechless.

Despite being at the mercy of my fellow countrymen, who have ridiculed and judged me no end, I did not allow it to make me any less of an Indian or Hindu. I may not fit into the precise mould of what an Indian is in their book, but I have long since resigned myself to being a square peg, unable to fit in a round hole.

But that is the beauty of being Malaysian, is it not?

I am a Malaysian, who loves her Malaysian food, who respects those of all religions and cheerfully smothers herself in the comforts and richness of all the different cultures that Malaysia has to offer.

And if that makes me less of a textbook Indian or Hindu, so be it.