One of the most acrimonious political controversies in the recent past in the Southeast Asian region was the abrupt separation of Malaysia and Singapore in 1965.

The psychological effects on both sides of the Causeway - and beyond - are still being felt 40 years later.

The shocks that resulted from the dramatic event was compounded by the fact that it was only two years earlier in 1963 that Singapore was finally merged - amidst bitter polemics across the ideological spectrum - with the Peninsula to form, together with Sabah and Sarawak, the Federation of Malaysia.

Many conflicting accounts have since been advanced to find out the real and exact reasons for the love-hate or sweet-and-sour relations between the Peninsula and Singapore which almost shared the similar historical experiences of being colonised by the British Empire and rampaged by Imperial Japan, and also thousands of very emotive family and friendship ties in the civil societies.