The plight and future of Indians was known to me when I attended in Lower Six in a Malay-based secondary school. I shared classes with Malay friends during Form 4 and Form 5. They do not study hard, but they play guitar and take life easy. On the other hand I was studying really hard day and night.

When I first reached Lower Six, I didn't see any of them, as all were waiting for Mara to help them out. I stayed on Lower Six and vowed to study hard. We had 12 Malays in the classroom in the first few months in Lower Six.

After one month, all of them - I mean all of them - left for degrees in the US and UK. Indians and Chinese were left in the classroom with STPM. Those two years were the hardest two years that I have to go through. I studied 16 to 20 hours a day for almost every day, and managed to get a place in electronic engineering. My Malay friends who were with me in Form Five (those who took life easy) was also in the same degree faculty. That really hurts.

As my university life progressed, Malays undergraduates generally do not perform as well since university was tougher compared to matriculation, whereas for us, university was easier and STPM was much tougher.

The worst non-Malay student in the whole faculty would be the non-Malays from matriculation as they did not go through the same experience as their STPM counterparts. It is so clear that meritocracy would not work as those who are spoon-fed by the government are less aggressive.

If they open up the chance to Indians, the Chinese would then ask for their right. I would always say that the allocation of special rights should be a need-based one rather than race-based distribution.

Without this change, I have decided to leave Malaysia for better. It is survival. The government should not have to look for reasons to bring back professionals back to our country - they should seriously look for ways to keep current professionals not from leaving the country due to the implementation of special rights through racial policies.