Pickleball, Malaysians and a rally for Muhibbah

A good partner covers the court with you. A less dependable one disappears whenever the difficult ball arrives, before reappearing just in time to explain what you should have done.

Then the game ends and somebody asks the most Malaysian sporting question of all: “Makan?”

Now we are home. Any calories heroically burnt can be restored over teh tarik, roti canai, laksa or nasi lemak.

Malaysians seem to regard correcting a calorie deficit as a civic responsibility. Perhaps social cohesion has always required a carbohydrate component.

For retirees especially, the companionship matters.

Work once supplied colleagues and human contact automatically. Retirement arrives, children build their own lives and the diary becomes quieter.

A sporting group gives the week another rhythm: someone expects you and notices when you do not turn up.

The paddle becomes more than sporting equipment; it becomes an admission ticket to community.

Where people keep meeting, friendships deepen – and perhaps even courtship follows.

Pickleball may have advantages over online dating: no flattering photograph from 12 years ago and no claim of an “active lifestyle”, just perspiration, a difficult backhand and character on display.

Does the person call the line honestly, laugh at a miss, blame the partner or lose graciously? Useful compatibility tests.

And if romance follows, both will already understand one principle of partnership: sometimes the ball in the middle really is yours.

Pickleball may also have arrived at the right moment for families.

We live in perhaps the most connected age humanity has known, yet can sit around the same table while everyone is somewhere else – one on WhatsApp, another on TikTok, someone answering emails, and Dad writing another article. Guilty as charged.

A court changes that. Four people must look at one another, communicate, react, move and laugh.

Grandparents can play with grandchildren, parents with children, siblings and cousins together – and husbands with wives. That last partnership requires diplomacy. There are some balls a husband should simply allow his wife to take.

And this is where pickleball starts to say something larger about the weeks after Merdeka.

There is an old Malaysian word I remain especially fond of: Muhibbah.

Growing up, Muhibbah did not need a PowerPoint presentation, KPI or consultant’s framework.

It was children of different races sitting in the same classroom, playing on the same field, swapping food and visiting one another during festive seasons.

Muhibbah happened because people had places to meet.

That matters increasingly today. We can live in the same country yet inhabit different social, political and digital worlds.

Algorithms surround us with people who think like us, while communities increasingly talk about one another rather than to one another.

Perhaps we need more Muhibbah spaces – schools, workplaces, markets, kopitiams, mamaks, community halls, neighbourhood parks, playing fields and, increasingly, pickleball courts.

A pickleball court is wonderfully indifferent to identity.

The ball does not know your race. The paddle does not ask your religion. The net has no political affiliation.

Players may speak different mother tongues, worship differently and celebrate different festivals. They may hold irreconcilable opinions about Malaysia’s best laksa, curry mee, nasi lemak or kopi.

But when four people step onto one court, identity is not erased; it simply stops being a barrier. That is Muhibbah.

Merdeka gave us the freedom to determine our own future, but living together requires something beyond political independence.

It requires the willingness to share space with people who are not exactly like us.

A tennis player does not stop being a tennis player when she picks up a pickleball paddle. A badminton player does not renounce badminton.

Each brings something from the old game and learns the rules of a shared court.

Malaysia should work the same way. Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan-Dusun, Iban, Bidayuh, Sikh, Eurasian, Orang Asli and our many other communities do not have to become culturally interchangeable before we can belong to the same nation.

Unity is not uniformity. Muhibbah does not say, “Become like me.”

It says, “Come play with me.”

That may be one of the simplest definitions of nation-building I know.

Doubles offers one final lesson: you cannot cover the whole court yourself.

Take every shot and you will exhaust yourself – and irritate your partner. Sometimes you take the ball; sometimes your partner is better placed.

Trust matters.

Occasionally, both assume the other will take the middle ball and watch it drop untouched. Then comes the familiar cry: “I thought you were taking it!”

Malaysia has probably had a few such moments.

Nation-building is not singles. It is an enormous mixed-doubles partnership involving millions of Malaysians, different histories and expectations, and plenty of spectators shouting contradictory instructions.

Sometimes communication fails, somebody takes too much court, or we argue too long about the previous point.

Never mind. Pick up the ball, talk and serve again.

As pickleball grows, I hope we preserve its accessibility. Build courts, train coaches and create champions, by all means – but leave space for the auntie trying her first paddle, the grandfather playing with his granddaughter, the teenager escaping a screen and the retiree finding new friends.

Not every victory needs a medal; sometimes it is simply a good sweat, a good laugh and a new friend.

The same is true of Malaysia. Nation-building resumes every morning around dining tables, in classrooms and offices, at kopitiams and mamaks, in kampungs and neighbourhoods – wherever Malaysians encounter one another not first as categories, but as people.

We celebrated 68 years of Merdeka on Aug 31; on Sept 16, we mark 63 years since the formation of Malaysia.

Between those dates lies a useful reminder: Merdeka marked freedom; Malaysia Day marked a coming together.

Making that belonging meaningful remains a continuing project.

Malaysia is still a work in progress. Sometimes we serve an ace, sometimes we hit the net, and sometimes a gentle dink would have worked better than a smash.

But families do not abandon the game after one bad rally, and neither should nations.

Perhaps that little perforated ball offers an apt post-Merdeka message: we do not need to become identical or surrender where we came from.

We simply need enough common ground – or one common court – on which to meet.

Muhibbah is not about becoming the same. It is about making room for one another in the game.

So when the rally breaks down, pick up the ball and begin again.

As for me, my daughter started the introduction, my tennis-playing wife has moved ahead, and the family appears determined not to wait. I had better pick up that paddle.

Otherwise, by next Merdeka, I may still be writing about pickleball while everyone else is playing – very poor field research indeed.

Joseph Tek Choon Yee has over 30 years of experience in the plantation industry, with a strong background in oil palm research and development, C-suite leadership and industry advocacy. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.