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indeed be met. Even if the Malay staff in the team was largely clerical, those tall bars of green marched across the screens of the boardroom with the assurance that the sons of the soil were employable, very world-class indeed. It was only when one of the tall bars became a person and flounced out of a boardroom that everyone seemed struck by the reality of it, of race and colour determining the destiny of all Malaysians.

Seven
    It took time for the ten thousand Indian protestors to swell to a mass of angry humanity. It would take the police more than five hours to clear downtown Kuala Lumpur, that too, only after the crowds were worn down by a barrage of tear gas and water cannons which sprayed potent chemical-laced jets into the crowd.
    The crowd built up slowly, gathering in temples smelling of milk souring in the midday sun and ribbons of jasmine. Lunch-time idlers in the shade of the Petronas Twin Towers, holding out rice in banana leaf cones, pointing at the curries of beef and squid and beans and lentils, murmured to each other, only slightly alarmed by the growing crowd. The ice- kacang seller looked up, spooning condensed milk over the shaved ice and sweet beans, and briefly wondered whether to abandon his makeshift stall.
    The protestors, defying three days of official warnings, had mobilised an unprecedented number of people, especially young Indian men, incensed at the lack of job and educational opportunities. They had finally mobilised the anger against the growing arrogance of a Master Race of Malays.
    Without any warning, the first plume of tear gas whizzed towards the lrt station. There were distant screams, running hordes, and then the fire trucks aimed the water jets at the panicked mass. The man holding a tall banner protesting the destruction of Hindu temples doubled-up in resistance to the jet, mooning the police, but he soon fell to the floor. A sulphurous smoke made everything opaque. The protestors scrambled for their handkerchiefs, and covered their mouths while fleeing. Some people vomited into the bushes, others rubbed their eyes. In a clearing still untouched by the smoke, groups of young men were being handcuffed to each other, their arms raised in defiance. Slogan-shouters hurled water bottles and stones, then flower pots and shoes at the advancing police, before being beaten up and dragged into police trucks.
    Chants of Freedom Rakyat and People Power started up, then died down again.

Eight
    Sitting in her office, Agni pictured the face of the furious Malay woman in the reflection of her glass window, and saw her ring glinting in the sunlight. Bumiputra. Sons of the Soil . One Sanskrit word divided and transformed, despite a shared history and culture – defining who could rule and who must serve.
    One choice made in her history so many years ago, made on her behalf by her own grandmother, separated her from the Malay woman engineer. What if her mother had been allowed to marry the Malay man, Agni’s father?
    Agni rocked back and forth in her swivel chair as the reams of data, the letters and numbers, blurred into each other. She felt exhausted, yet the burr of the telephone was insistent, stopping and then starting again. The room felt unfamiliar as she stared up at the clock display blinking ten past eleven. When the phone started again, she sat up sharply, flinching at a spasm in her back.
    “Hello?” The voice on the other end was terse. “Agni? Can you hear me?”
    “Who’s this?” A point above her left eyebrow throbbed dully, and she didn’t want to play guessing games.
    “Abhik!”
    “Sorry, the line has a really bad echo… Where are you?”
    “Listen, there’s going to be trouble in the streets today. Stay inside, okay? Especially at the city centre.”
    Agni craned her neck over the money plants in the window-sill. “I can’t see anything.”
    “Look, I can’t talk now. Just keep off the streets. Trust me on this… love you.”
    Agni smiled at the mobile phone in