THE DEAD ARE ODORLESS
Weekly column written for Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . 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 Act...