I read Helen Ang's bold article and Nathaniel Tan's Why I will walk this Sunday and thankfully cast my lot with them.

Nathaniel Tan articulated every doubt, fear and reservation I held, as a Malaysian Tamil, about this rally. He is right. Indian Malaysians are treated shamefully by the government. When a community has its back against the wall, as Helen Ang puts it, it reaches out for the megaphone. The Hindraf or Bersih rally may be an ill-conceived and desperate strategy to be heard, but I have learned that imploring justice from the Queen of England is a better strategy than asking the King of Malaysia.

Yale law professor Owen M Fiss, in his 'The Irony of Free Speech' wrote that some voices have to be lowered in order for others to be heard. He asks, "How free is the speech of someone who can't be heard?" Bravo! Malaysian Indians are beginning to rise above the traditional fear, shame, oppression and intimidation inflicted on them by the government.

Here is my poem in celebration of our efforts as Malaysians to overcome the silencing effect of Malaysian "free" speech. My poem denies "Malaysian 'free' speech" its power to intimidate, confound and thwart the aspirations and dynamically-evolving identities of underrepresented and disadvantaged voices, be it that of women or minorities.

As of 1963 � Of That Indian I am Not

"You are not
Indian, anymore!"
The silk sari that slid of my shoulder
Hissed: and history was suddenly
a snake in the grass, dead in pastures
that had wintered, eating alive in the
padangs that had not. I am of those
green pastures my head walked
before my feet ever touched
the ground
but tell me if I can ever grow
where I am not
that silk sari that slid off my shoulder
hissed: and I reared my angry mane
red as my common blood
and danced like those dragons, shaking
the yellow leaves off
the what you now call a family tree
in my own private storm
and the streets of my Malaysia
talk into my head a sense of those snakes
who slithered
before those who bartered with my fathers
sold them an Indian who was not.

Now I watch my sari sway a hundred ways
And in the spittle of old women
maybe even on the backs of sirih trays
my eyes, round as the new moon,
see the stain
on the streets history made
red with the Indian I am not.

The writer is Malaysian born author of 'Please, God, Don't Let Me Write Like A Woman', Finishing Line Press, 2007.