I encounter a man named Kelvin D Loovi at Kafe Ping Hooi, a coffee shop in Penang. It’s a well-known, dingy little crowded place in the centre of Georgetown, popular for its char koay teow and lor bak.

D Loovi is Eurasian Indian, though it takes close observation to detect his Caucasian genes, passed down from his Ceylonese grandmother’s union to an English Baptist minister. He’s dark-skinned and has a big round face with a goatee surrounding his smile like a moat. He has jet-black rocker hair that belies his fifty-three years. The more I look at him, the more he strikes me as the love child of Ozzy Osbourne and Ernie from Sesame Street. He is loquacious but has a genteel voice—not unlike Lobo, the 1970s crooner.

A mutual friend tells me his moniker is an affectation, though one he wears without pretension. My conjecture is that ‘D’ is a humble capitalisation of ‘the’, a way to mark himself as The Man, The Dude, The Lover—Loovi D Lover.

• Tags: Issue 41, Ken Kwek, Malaysia