THE DEAD ARE ODORLESS
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I thought my grandfather's smell would never leave me. Years ago, my father's father had left his wife and children for another woman and her family. In his old age, when the other family could not take care of him any longer, my grandfather returned to his original set of children, as to a stone wall, because none would take him back. Except for my father, himself dead now just slightly more than a year ago, who turfed me out of my room to make room for my grandfather. I could not bear the smell hanging on him like a wreath. He smelled of rotting pork rubbed with Tiger Balm ointment, but drier, dustier.
I am reminded of my grandfather by the granddaughter of J. B. Jeyaretnam. The Yale freshman has just published a beautiful essay about her grandfather who is, was, famous in Singapore for being the first opposition politician to be elected into Parliament after almost three decades of People's Action Party's rule. I remember watching JBJ, so he was affectionately called, on TV as he spluttered in rage when attacked by the heavy-hitters, including then-PM Lee Kuan Yew, of the government. Even on the screen, he smelled of futility. He would, in time, be bankrupted by the multiple defamation suits brought against him by the PAP leaders.
For all its vivid details, Miranda Jeyaretnam's essay did not mention any smells. The dead are, after all, odorless. When they cross over to the other side, they smell at first of the food they loved, their method of burial, their history of sex, but days pass, months, then years, and the smell passes away too. My grandfather too is now odorless, for I realize now, thanks to JBJ's granddaughter, that what I smelled on him was not the fragrance of death but the stink of life.
Jee Leong Koh
October 17, 2019
I thought my grandfather's smell would never leave me. Years ago, my father's father had left his wife and children for another woman and her family. In his old age, when the other family could not take care of him any longer, my grandfather returned to his original set of children, as to a stone wall, because none would take him back. Except for my father, himself dead now just slightly more than a year ago, who turfed me out of my room to make room for my grandfather. I could not bear the smell hanging on him like a wreath. He smelled of rotting pork rubbed with Tiger Balm ointment, but drier, dustier.
I am reminded of my grandfather by the granddaughter of J. B. Jeyaretnam. The Yale freshman has just published a beautiful essay about her grandfather who is, was, famous in Singapore for being the first opposition politician to be elected into Parliament after almost three decades of People's Action Party's rule. I remember watching JBJ, so he was affectionately called, on TV as he spluttered in rage when attacked by the heavy-hitters, including then-PM Lee Kuan Yew, of the government. Even on the screen, he smelled of futility. He would, in time, be bankrupted by the multiple defamation suits brought against him by the PAP leaders.
For all its vivid details, Miranda Jeyaretnam's essay did not mention any smells. The dead are, after all, odorless. When they cross over to the other side, they smell at first of the food they loved, their method of burial, their history of sex, but days pass, months, then years, and the smell passes away too. My grandfather too is now odorless, for I realize now, thanks to JBJ's granddaughter, that what I smelled on him was not the fragrance of death but the stink of life.
Jee Leong Koh
October 17, 2019
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