The pictures speak for themselves

M.I. Merican and M.S. Marikan (right)

1. My South Indian roots appertain to my father’s side of the family. When he married my mother, a young Malay girl from a family of rice growers - my ethnicity in my vital records belongs with my mother’s.

2. However, my facial features do not quite typify my ethnicity. For instance, during my pilgrimage to Mecca years ago, a few shopkeepers asked me where I came from and my response seemed to make them wonder. I still recall one of them quipping “not original” which apparently meant that to his eyes I didn’t look like a typical Malay man from Malaysia.

3. Generally, in looks I take after my father I guess. For instance, I have oblong face shape akin to that of his (see pictures). As I recall, he had completely turned grey when I was still very small. I guess it’s a hereditary trait that I started to go grey when I turned thirty despite the fact that people normally grey later in life.

4. The shapes of my eyes bear a similarity to his. We have deep-set almond eyes which are slightly “upturned.” With age, his hooded eyes accounted for the droopy eyelids that invite comparison with that of mine. The bags under his eyes were more pronounced during his later years, a feature I now notice developing on my lower eyelids.

5. We also share a rather straight nose with long, narrow ridge and a round tip. The wings of our noses flared out and upward a little so that the nostrils are visible from the front.

6. My laugh lines match his as well. Distinct skin folds run from each side of our noses to the corners of our mouths and thence extend further down the jaws. Besides that, my jowls have begun to resemble his. The skin at the lower part of my cheeks bulges and hangs down and covers my jaw.

7. His other facial features that match mine include his ordinary-looking lips with a rounded philtrum and slightly downward corners; his somewhat narrow ears which seemed a bit longer than mine because of the extended lobes and his round and slightly receding chin except that I sport a goatee.

8.  The pictures below speak for themselves. I have passed my mid-50s when the picture on the right was taken. I guess my father had also had his picture taken at about the same age. The pictures show near likeness in appearance between us, but of course there are traces of my mother's features on my looks as well.

M.I. Merican and M.S. Marikan (right)

Note: My great-grandfather was from Pondicherry, South India. In the 1770s he emigrated to the newly founded British settlement in Penang along with his mother and elder brother and decades later became a very successful merchant in George Town. My grandfather, Vapoo Merican, was born in the settlement and became a merchant in his own right. My father had detached himself from the merchant lineage to join the civil service under the government of Kedah instead.