While walking through the commercial heart of Ipoh town, as I turned into Jalan Merchant; I read a succession of signage’s which felt like the Indian Ocean- Patel, Karachi Trading and Kamdar which were textile shops. I crossed the street and heard ‘Dafali Wale, Dafali Baja’ the Rishi Kapoor starrer and met Mr. Rup, the Sindhi Hindu Gentleman who chatted with me. His father came to Malaya during the 2nd World War. He opens his shop in the morning with Bhajan’s and listens to old school Bollywood film music in the afternoon. He spoke fluent Hindi, and his wife is from Bangalore.

These oral histories are embedded in the Indian Ocean port cities where Kutchis and Sindhi’s had built a trading infrastructure from Gibraltar to Panama as Markowitz had written.