A feast full of laughs

> What better way to celebrate the Diwali festivities than to get your fill of the spot-on parodies cooked up by the witty Indi Nadarajah and Allan Perera

Eurasian families in Malaysia really tickled me to tears.

I could really relate, as I had been running around barefoot as a child with my neighbours Ram, Segaran, Ghandi, Nehru and Haridas, and later on in adult life, I dealt with the likes of the De Souzas, Barbosas, Scullys, Dankers, and Westwoods.

I’m always truly overjoyed when Indi and Allan dissect the “tribal and clannish rivalries” of people whose forefathers came on a boat to Malaysia from the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andra Pradesh and Punjab, as well as Sri Lanka’s Jaffna.

I am especially tickled by their recounting of the Indians’ penchant for listing places of employment in obituaries, for the deceased as well as the living! Absolutely far-out!

Indi and Allan never fail to sparkle when they banter on the trials and tribulations of marriages and arranged marriages among Indians, as well as the pros and cons of married life and bachelorhood.

Fast-forward to contemporary Malaysia, I especially liked one gem of a skit, which showed Allan as a filial son telling his aged mother that she shouldn’t listen to the gardener next door, who had claimed that pensions for retired civil servants would no longer be paid following the change of government!

A very sharp lampoon on the often-cited grim situation that the new ‘government of hope’ is saddled with debts totalling over one trillion ringgit!

Indi and Allan may have tickled our ribs for the last 20 years, but at the rate they’re going, they can still bedazzle us for the next 20. Rally on!