It was 1976 and our family firm was an agent for the Shipping Corporation of India. Some months into the year, my father was informed that the wife of the Chairman of the Corporation would be visiting Kuala Lumpur and staying with us. This caught me as quite unusual. Captains of ships that plied the eastern routes that called at our port, Port Swettenham, as Port Klang was then known, occasionally did bring their wife or family along, but their preference however was to be taken shopping or sightseeing in the daytime and be returned to the ship by nightfall.
As it came closer to the arrival date we were informed that Shri Mataji had already arrived in Penang, the first port of call in Malaysia by ship. A few days later She would be arriving in Kuala Lumpur by air and had requested that the press be invited to come to the airport to interview Her. Once again we were all puzzled.
Hamim from Malaysia