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Listening to grandmothers is important says this ad campaign by Malaysia's national oil company, the Petronas group. Celebrating its Indian community, the smallest of the three main ethnic groups in Malaysia, the oil company has been putting out commercials around Diwali for some years now, as also around other festivals.

This year's campaign, tagged #PaatiSays, asks the community to listen to grandmothers about the reasons behind certain traditions. The video above involves a grandma from the "Chindian" community, as Sino-Indian families are colloquially known. Shirley Rajadurai, who speaks fluent Tamil, tells us how a traditional kohlam, or rangoli as it is more popularly known, is made.

She says first the doorway must be washed and then the kohlam should be made with rice flour. The flour is essential since insects can eat it and the act of giving back to nature brings blessings upon the household. Today's ubiquitous plastic stickers and coloured powder are quite pointless in this scheme of things.

Malaysia is home to the largest population of Chinese-Indian families, according to The Chindian Diaries project run by the Sino-Indian Kevin Bathman.

In the already multicultural nation, where Malays and Chinese far outnumber the Indian community, Chinese Indians are a rather small group. Bathman's project is designed to build and share stories around this overlooked community. And efforts such as this one are a great way of bringing these stories to the mainstream.