Accident Victim Refuses A Doctor's Help, Saying He Doesn't Want A "Keling" To Touch Him
The doctor was driving home from work when the incident happened in Taiping.
By Sadho Ram — 03 Jan 2016, 04:26 PM
When you stop your car to help an accident victim, being hurled with racist remarks is not even the least of things you would expect.
However, in a country where even the elected representatives of the rakyat don't think twice before uttering racially charged remarks and statements, one would do good to expect treated differently.
On the night of 29 December, Shalini Paramaswaran, a doctor by profession, was driving home from work when she noticed an old Malay uncle falling from his bike while attempting to make a U-turn
Shalini narrated the incident in a Facebook post on 30 December.
According to the post, he was trying to make a U-turn at a traffic light but skidded and fell down with his bike falling on top of him. So she pulled over and went to check on him. By now others had stopped too and lifted the bike from over the uncle.
She noticed that his right leg was deformed with bone exposed, indicating an open fracture. He was complaining that he was unable to feel his feet.
At which point she introduced herself to help him "and Pakcik responded in a rather shocking way", she wrote on her post, which at the time of writing this story has been shared over 3,100 times with more than 8,350 Likes.
In front of the crowd that had gathered there, the accident victim refused the good doctor's help, saying, "Aku taknak keling datang dekat aku ke, tolong aku ke, banyak orang boleh tolong" (I don't want a 'keling' coming near me, or to help me, others can help me)
According to its Wikipedia entry, Keling is a word used to describe people originating from the Indian subcontinent by native Malaysians, Singaporeans and Indonesians. Although the word was used since ancient times without derogatory intention, since the 1960s Keling has been used in a derogatory sense.
At which point she moved away as members of the public were also asking her to walk away. The shell-shocked doctor, however, proceeded to call an ambulance. Upon arrival of the medical unit, Dr Shalini briefed the paramedic who attended to the injured victim.
After ensuring that the Malay man was attended to, she was about to leave the accident site when the paramedic called out to her, asking if she had examined the man.
She replied, "No, he didn’t want me to touch him. So I called an ambulance instead and waited to ensure no one moved him."
Overhearing the exchange, the man then smiled and said:
"Saya taktahu awak doktor. Doktor boLeh sentuh."
(I didn't know you were a doctor. Doctor can touch.)
facebook.com
Expressing her disbelief, Shalini ended her post saying:
"Before knowing I'm a doctor, I was a disgusting 'keling', cannot touch. After knowing, all the smiles n sorry…"