“It wasn’t a collection of family snapshots, but a meticulously labelled record of his cows,” recalled the 67-year-old of the meeting in Penang.
“Each had a name, a recorded age, and a place in his heart as a ‘familial member’,” she told Malaysiakini, reflecting on the deep human connection that first ignited the spark of activism in her.
Today, that same spirit drives Meenakshi as the president of Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM), one of the country’s oldest and most influential environmental NGOs.
But in that Penang trip in 1981, Meenakshi was just a first-year law undergraduate from Universiti Malaya - a student from rural Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan, who grew up around cattle. Yet, she had never seen such a...