801号房. . .内心深处的心声

一年后了，这就是我的新办公桌。比起以前的大多了。大上好几倍，也比较宽畅多了。

11月15日对所有曾经在文殊中学就读，或曾经在文殊校园度过四年、五年甚至是六年的同学们。这天对我们来说，内心的感觉是起起落落的。因为我们这一身中的一部分时间是在文殊的校园里度过的。

令我感动的是，能够看到许许多多的学长们回来，与此同时也看到许多的面孔。最感动的是，看到许多的学长们回返母校时是带着他们年幼的孩子们回来。我想这一幕是那天最感人至深的。

要是你问起我来，我反覆好像是昨天刚毕业。我在文殊校园里成长，这六年得中学生涯里，喜怒哀乐是事，我想是每个中学生都有经历过得吧？

你看考试考的好，是不是很喜悦？考得不好，是不是又怒又哀呢？

这天的我，心情有点感伤。因为在这度过了六年的中学生涯，转眼之间这一切都要往心里头摆放着。永远永远的留在自己的回忆里。我自个在快要关闭的旧校舍饶了一圈。文殊在芽笼这一带已有了挺多年了。26年，对应该有26年了吧？当年已故长老们，不屈不挠的精神，到处奔波到处为着芽笼的校舍筹款。因为有了各界人士的善款，我们这些晚辈才有这么舒适的环境里学习。可这一切都会成为历史。以往得读书声，以往的学生喧哗声都会跟着时间的脚步慢慢得走入历史。

这一天，我真的很仔细得把旧校舍的每一个角落都给看个清楚。从1993年1月2日的那一天到1998年的11月末。我所走过的角落，包括升旗礼的广场，那宽阔的草场。那些课室，仿佛好像是我们昨天在那上课学习的地方。我还记得我坐过的位置。我的回忆仿佛回到了学生生涯的时光。突然间，我被那恼人的钟声给带回了2008年11月15日的下午。

我看到了那黄昏的阳光照进了那课室的久窗户. . .那感觉是我无法用任何词汇能够描绘的. . .我在次收拾了心情，带着沉重的脚步最后一次踏出了文殊中学的校门！

走出校门得那一刻，心中唱了最后一次在旧校舍. . .校歌. . . .

文殊师利，智慧之光. . . . .

A TORRENTIAL tropical rainstorm beat down from darkened skies on Thursday as mourners began a funeral mass for Singapore’s ‘angel’ killed by armed militants in Mumbai over a week ago.

The downpour continued even as Ms Lo Hwei Yen’s white coffin left the St Teresa’s Church near Bukit Purmei for Mandai Crematorium.

Ms Lo, 28, a lawyer, was one of at least 188 people, including 22 foreigners, killed in a shooting and grenade rampage by 10 militants who terrorised Mumbai for 60 hours last week.

The church was packed for the private funeral service, attended by over 200 people, who had earlier attended a prayer session at her family home in Lower Delta Road.

Ms Lo’s death has jolted the nation, and sparked off an outpouring of grief and support for her family. Hundreds of Singaporeans, including cabinet ministers and the President, have turned out during the week for her wake.

The Sunday before Ms Lo flew to Mumbai, she and her husband were in Melbourne, and they attended mass in church together.

They were in church again on Thursday afternoon. This time, Mr Michael Puhaindran, 37, also a lawyer, was at St Teresa’s Church here to see her off.

Mr Puhaindran delivered a glowing eulogy of his wife, who he said was the love of his life.

He said: ‘I am both happy and sad to tell you that Yen wasn’t just the one I wanted. She was the one who I needed.’

Some 600 people later went to the Mandai Crematorium to bid a final farewell to Ms Lo.

In a short service lasting about 20 minutes at Hall 4, Mr Puhaindran said a short prayer and asked God to take a ‘new angel’.

Family members and close friends then gathered for a private service before the cremation.

‘She was there at the wrong time,’ Mr Devendran Puhaindran, the uncle of Ms Lo’s husband said before the funeral.

‘I remember her as a very bubbly girl, always with a smile.’

Funeral mourners were asked to wear ‘fabulous black’, a reflection of Ms Lo’s stylishness, friends said.

Ms Lo’s smiling face has been peering from the newspapers daily since the foreign ministry announced her death last Friday.

‘You look at her smile, you can see that radiance of her soul,’ her husband said in a 15-minute eulogy in church.

The couple were married only last year in Bali.

Ms Lo had gone to Mumbai for only one night to deliver a talk about the global credit crunch.

She was taken hostage on Wednesday night, along with others, by the militants who stormed the Oberoi/Trident hotel where she was staying.

Singapore’s foreign ministry said before she died, Ms Lo had conveyed a message from the attackers. The terrorists demanded that the Indian authorities refrain from storming the Oberoi hotel or else they would harm her.

Her body was found on the 19th floor of the hotel, he said.

‘Yen, my angel, my princess, words cannot express how much I miss you,’ her husband said, choking on his words during the eulogy.

‘I love you my baby.’

Departed on 27 November 2008
dearly missed and fondly remembered by loved ones.

Wake will be held at 1005 Lower Delta Road, Teresa Ville
from 6 pm on Sunday, 30 November to Thursday, 4 December 2008
Daily Prayers from 8.00pm to 8.30pm

My beautiful angel Yen, without you my life has no meaning and no purpose.
You were everything to me and the time I spent with you was the happiest
of my life. Your family misses you more than words can express.
We love you so much and pray that God has you in His loving arms. . . .

MICHAEL PUHAINDRAN

Pen in your Condolences here

MR MICHAEL Puhaindran knew that lawyer Lo Hwei Yen was the woman he wanted to marry from the moment he met her. It was a brief encounter, along bustling Change Alley at Raffles Place, in 2006 when Ms Lo was a pupil with law firm Drew and Napier.

The 37-year-old recalled that he asked his friend: ‘Who’s the babe?’ So began their eight-month courtship, which led to their Bali wedding last year.

It is obvious Mr Puhaindran is still reeling from the loss of the woman he said he ‘waited all his life to find’. Minutes before he was to speak with reporters, he appeared distracted and lost in thought.

The only time he broke into a smile was when a friend pointed to a picture of Ms Lo and said something to him.

‘She had a smile that captured you. When you saw her smile, you knew that this was a person who smiled with her whole being,’ Mr Puhaindran said, when asked what had struck him most about his 28-year-old wife.

A second, chance encounter at coffee shop Spinelli presented Mr Puhaindran with an opportunity to ask Ms Lo out for lunch. Their first date was at San Marco’s at the Fullerton Hotel.

Certain that Ms Lo was the one for him, Mr Puhaindran popped the question on the first day of their holiday in the Maldives. She accepted immediately. ‘I had not planned to do it so soon, but I guess I just could not wait,’ he said.

They also had the same taste in music. ‘Even though she’s nine years younger than me, she liked retro music. We had a really good time,’ said Mr Puhaindran, referring to the Kylie Minogue concert they attended the day before she left for Mumbai.

Like all newly weds, they had the occasional tiff, but Mr Puhaindran described the last few weeks he had with her as the ‘best time of my life’. ‘She was my entire life, and everything I did, I did for her.’

He loved his wife so much that he would not even let her get wet in the rain.

‘I would do all I could to make her life as smooth as possible and she would do the same for me. Being unable to protect her…’ Mr Puhaindran broke off mid-sentence, clearly struggling with his pain.

The support of family and friends has helped him cope with his grief. ‘Before coming back to Singapore, I didn’t know how I was going to carry on.’

Regarding the future, Mr Puhaindran said that he is now ‘taking things one day at a time’. He has kept himself busy with the wake arrangements, making sure that everything is perfect, down to every last detail.

It is clear that Mr Puhaindran’s wife is still the centre of his life. When asked what she would have wanted for him, he faltered for a moment as he struggled to contain his emotions.

His voice cracked as he said: ‘She would want me to live my life.’

EVEN as she was being held by terrorists in her Mumbai hotel a week ago, Ms Lo Hwei Yen’s voice remained steady as she spoke with her husband on her mobile phone.

‘I was reacting to her trying to remain calm as well,’ her husband, Mr Michael Puhaindran, recalled yesterday.

‘Only in her very last sentence did she say: ‘Please tell them (the authorities) to hurry up’.

‘That’s when I really couldn’t take it and I told her I loved her so very much, and she said the same thing.

‘And those were her last words.’

Some time later, the 28-year- old Ms Lo was killed by her captors. She was one of several people who lost their lives in The Oberoi Trident Hotel, one of several Mumbai landmarks attacked by terrorists whose rampage left over 180 dead.

Yesterday, during his wife’s wake, Mr Puhaindran spoke to reporters for the first time about her last hours.

While the 37-year-old was composed at the start of the 40-minute interview attended by some 20 journalists and cameramen, by the time it ended, he had broken down several times.

He said he last saw his wife on Wednesday last week when he drove her to the airport for an early morning flight to Mumbai. The lawyer was heading to India’s financial centre to deliver a talk on the impact of the credit crunch on the shipping industry.

The couple, who were married over a year ago, exchanged text messages throughout the day, but around midnight Ms Lo called her husband on her mobile phone.

‘She sounded calm but there’s a slight degree of urgency in her voice. She was having dinner but they heard some commotion outside. It sounded like gunshots,’ Mr Puhaindran recalled.

The shots came from terrorists who had stormed the high-end Oberoi, armed with machine guns and grenades.

About 15 minutes later, the couple spoke again. This time, Ms Lo told her husband she was cooped up in a 10th-floor stairwell with some hotel security guards and other staff, waiting for the police.

He held off calling her for 45 minutes, not wanting to blow her cover.

When he tried to call again later, ‘the phone would ring but nobody picked it up’.

Unbeknown to her husband, Ms Lo had been taken hostage.

Then came a call at about 6am.

‘She was talking in a completely steady voice. She said she was being held hostage by gunmen…armed with machine guns and grenades,’ said Mr Puhaindran.

The terrorists gave Ms Lo a message for her husband: Get the Singapore Government to tell the Mumbai authorities to refrain from storming the hotel – or she would lose her life.

‘Needless to say, we went completely nuts,’ said Mr Puhaindran, who informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Officials conveyed the message to the top levels of the Indian government.

While she was held captive, Ms Lo also managed to send out a few e-mail messages through her BlackBerry. One message sent to three close friends at about 6.30am described her capture.

‘She ended off by saying: ‘If I don’t make it out of here, I love you all’,’ said Mr Puhaindran.

‘Despite everything she was facing, she still had the strength and courage to tell her friends that she loved them…I want people to know she was a brave Singaporean…that’s how brave she was.’

She would call her husband a final time when she asked him to tell the authorities to hurry.

Thirty-six hours later, on Friday evening, Mr Puhaindran was walking through the lobby of the Oberoi, which was covered in blood and broken glass. It had taken commandos two days to clear the building, which was still being swept for bombs.

There was no electricity. The building was ‘pitch-black’ as he climbed a stairwell; each step slippery because the sprinklers had gone off.

When he reached the 19th floor, Mr Puhaindran saw his wife’s body and he touched her cheek.

Someone passed him her handbag, which had her mobile phone, with about 150 missed calls, and her wedding ring.

‘Thank God they allowed me to see her where she lay…and they showed her to me,’ he said. ‘She still looked very beautiful.’

SHE had on the tailored crimson cheongsam that she had worn for her wedding last year.

Beside Ms Lo Hwei Yen in her white coffin, the cherished Hermes Birkin bag that husband Michael Puhaindran had given her. The family had wanted the lawyer to look her best and be surrounded by favourite things and loved ones at the very end, said younger sister Hwei Shan, 25.

For her funeral, ‘we decided we wanted something very elegant, very tasteful, which is very much in line with my sister’s personal taste’, she said.

The body of the 28-year-old Singaporean, who was shot and killed by terrorists, arrived here from Mumbai early yesterday morning. Over 250 people turned up at her wake at the Lower Delta Road condominium where her family has lived for 18 years.

A white air-conditioned marquee was set up at the foot of the Teresa Ville block, filled with arrangements of white orchids, spider chrysanthemums and brassicas draped with strands of pearls. Inside, soft jazz played while a projector screened snapshots of Ms Lo.

And it was a photo of Ms Lo as a radiant bride that smiled down at the endless stream of visitors who had come to pay their respects through the night.

Among them were 10 Victoria Junior College schoolmates who turned up in chic, little black dresses, just as she would have liked, they said.

Ms Lo was taken hostage by terrorists at Mumbai’s Oberoi Trident hotel late last Wednesday, her body was found on the 17th floor two days later.

Accompanying her back home was a group of people including her devastated 37-year-old husband. Family members learnt from her firm Stephenson Harwood yesterday that Ms Lo had flown to Mumbai after she accepted an invitation to speak at a business seminar.

She delivered her talk mere hours before terrorists stormed her hotel.

Sister Hwei Shan said: ‘Her colleagues received a lot of positive feedback about her speech. It’s good to know she was respected by her peers.’

Ms Lo was charming and exuded confidence that was rooted in true ability, firm partner Durai Shunmugam told The Straits Times. She had the ‘rare ability to be strong and yet be soft…she’d put things across in such a way that you wouldn’t have a choice but to say ‘yes’ – and still you smile’, he said.

The firm’s Christmas party, which Ms Lo had been in charge of, has been cancelled, he added.

Known for being friendly and cheerful, she has had several hundred tributes on the networking site Facebook. Even her condo’s security guard was heard saying: ‘She was a very nice, cheerful lady.’

Others who arrived to pay their respects at the wake included MP Sam Tan (Tanjong Pagar GRC) and even strangers like Mumbai-born Ila Maheshwari, 62, who lived in the same condominium.

‘We don’t have words to express our grief,’ said the housewife.

Extracts from Channel news Asia, The Straits Time On-line

Their final few weeks of marriage were truly the best time of his life. Breaking his silence for the first time, husband of Singaporean hostage Lo Hwei Yen killed in the Mumbai attacks, Michael Puhaindran gave an insight into the life of the 28-year-old. Puhaindran proposed to Lo in the Maldives within eight months of meeting her.

He said: “Everything I did, I did for her. My whole life revolved around her and she truly was the meaning of my life.” But after a beautiful Bali wedding, things went horribly wrong last Wednesday.

The first sign of trouble came when Puhaindran received a call at midnight Singapore time when Lo heard gunshots while having dinner. “About 15 minutes later, she or I called. We spoke. She said she was in a stairwell on the 10th floor and she was with security and some staff, and they were waiting for the police,” he said. After that phone call was a few agonising silent hours of waiting. Then came another call in the early hours of the morning which confirmed Puhaindran’s fears. “She was talking in a very steady voice; she was extremely brave. Her voice didn’t even waver. (She said) that she was being held hostage by gunmen and she said they were armed with machine guns and grenades,” said Puhaindran.

He contacted Singapore authorities. Then came the final call.

“She said they said they still see activity, still in a very steady voice and still talking to me. I was trying to remain calm as well. Only in her last sentence, she said ‘please tell them to hurry up’. And that’s when I couldn’t really take it, and said that I love her very much, and she said the same thing. So at least the last words I said to her were those words,” Puhaindran continued.

Puhaindran recalled her last final e-mail. “This one came in about 6.36 am Singapore time. She ended off by saying if I don’t make it out of here I love you all. Despite everything she was facing, she still had the strength and courage to tell her friends she loved them. I do want you to tell people she was a brave Singaporean,” Puhaindran added.

Finally on Friday, he was let into the Oberoi hotel. He said: “They were still detonating grenades. Initially they did not want us go back but MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) got us permission to get to the 19th floor. Everything was pitch black because there was no electricity. The floors were slippery. I think the sprinklers must have gone off. Then (they) showed her to me and I was able to touch her cheek and she still looked very beautiful.”

While questions remain unanswered about the siege, for many like Puhaindran who lost loved ones during the terror attacks, picking up the pieces from here will now be hardest.

“She would want me to live my life but it’s going to be very hard,” said Puhaindran.

28^th of November, I believe this is the day, where many Singaporeans would remember. And it is this very day that the family of late Miss Lo Hwei Yen, and the Puhaindran family would always remember.

Singapore received its rude awakening to end its Friday in a mixture of grief, anger and shock. News report has been flowing in with news of the death of Singaporean hostage. The nation was in grief. Though Miss Lo might not have been any one who is famous but it is this very touch of been a Singaporean, where we lived in this small red dot. Every one of us bond in closely whenever, we heard any Singaporeans’ tragic faith.

Singapore for the past 11 years has its own encounter with our own people in tragic ending. The lost of flight MI185 and SQ 006 have deem enough for Singaporeans to cope with. And I have been through at least one of these incidents, where I lost my senior from my high school. Despite the fact that I might have known her directly, but the lost of someone from your community or circle deems someone close to you.

Singapore has seen two hostage incidents in 34 years. In the cases of the Laju hijack in 1974 and the hijack of an SQ flight from KL in 1991, the hostages lived to tell their stories. Hwei Yen’s date with terrorism is very different.

For this 28-year-old lawyer’s friends, family, colleagues and those who knew her only through the smiling photographs and endearing reports in the newspapers, closure is difficult to come by. Such wound takes time to heal. And in most circumstances, such ordeals might not be able to obliterate, it just dexterity its recollection into ones’ heart! Hwei Yen was in Mumbai for a brief business trip, something many of us do these days without even batting an eyelid. And none of us would have ever think that her life was taken away in such a brusquely approach!

Her sisters have spoken about living with the cruel reality of not knowing what really happened to Hwei Yen.

“It’s going to take time to sink in,” said one of them.

Can any Singaporeans have a bearing or anyone in the world, consider ourselves away from impairment?

Mumbai attacks have given us an unswerving respond hitherto another time: No way.

The terrorists have shown all over again that if somebody out there with an insane mind and the espousal to thump a hole in the world’s sanctuary device, they will do it. Believe me, they will and previous incidents have shown it. Incidents in Bali for example, are one such case. The terrorists, for they can fail many times nonetheless they only need to clout once to make their point heard and seen.

If we had thought that it couldn’t get any more vivid and damaging than the 911 attacks, what happen in Mumbai has revealed otherwise. To the world, terrorism is not only unpredictable in its timing and also in its execution.

There are ways to prevent such incidents to happen, even before they have a chance to realise it. Foil their plans before they can be executed. Cross intelligence gathering and cross intelligence sharing among countries, especially with your friends next door, does help. India failed miserably in this, exposing its messy links with neighbor Pakistan for all to see. India have been too occupy with its armed affairs with Pakistan. And this has been on-going for years, with no results. In addition to due to the lack of a central command that further punch a hole while combating terrorism. The paramilitary elements and the military elements are not working together as one. There has no communication links between these 2 agencies. No coordinating agencies have ever set up to look into any possible similar events that took place in India. One such important element to the successful launch of the terror attack is the lack of funding to the respective agencies has caused these agencies to function normally, or even at time operations came to a halt.

And it is important to tell the terrorists that even they have put up a ‘massive’ 60-hours showdown in Mumbai, they have not succeeded. As people are still continuing with their daily activities, like travelling and vacation.

It takes a lot of effort to stomp terrorism.

Below are extracts from Channel News Asia.

‘‘Friends continued to stream in to pay their last respects to Lo Hwei Yen on Monday, the second day of her funeral wake. The 28-year-old Singaporean was shot and killed by terrorists in the Mumbai attacks. Flowers to the family streamed in throughout the day, a testament to how much Ms Lo will be missed. Several members of the public also offered their condolences to her family. Although they may not have known Ms Lo personally, they said they too shared in the family’s loss. “We felt very saddened. Such a young girl (and she) just passed away like that,” said one. . . ‘’

‘’ SINGAPORE : Singapore’s Foreign Ministry has said 28-year-old Lo Hwei Yen, a Singaporean held hostage in one of the Mumbai hotels, has been killed.

At a news conference late Friday night, officials confirmed her body was found on the 19th floor of the Oberoi Hotel. She is believed to be the the first Singaporean victim of a terror attack.

Jai Sohan Singh, director, Consular Directorate, Singapore Foreign Affairs Ministry, said: “We were told at about 8 o’clock this evening that there was a possibility that a body has been found matching the description of Ms Lo. A final confirmation was made by the husband only at 2135 hours this evening.” Details of what actually happened remain sketchy.

However, Mr Singh did give an outline of how the situation played out. He said that the terrorists conveyed a message through Ms Lo to Singapore’s mission in India for the Indian parliament.

He elaborated: “As you would have read in the Indian media, the terrorists demanded that the Indian authorities refrain from storming the Oberoi Hotel, otherwise they would harm her…We ask for your understanding that we could not confirm this earlier, as the situation at that time was fluid and fast evolving. It was not appropriate at that (time) for us to do this for operational reasons.” Ms Lo, who is a lawyer at a Singapore-based offshore law firm, was in Mumbai on a working trip. Her husband, Michael Puhaindran, had flown up to Mumbai on Thursday, after the crisis broke. He is accompanied by an aunt.

The Foreign Ministry is helping the family make arrangements to bring the body back.

It is confirmed there are no more Singaporeans stranded in any of the hotels in the financial capital.

115 Singaporeans were known to be in Mumbai either for work or leisure during the attack on Wednesday night, which has killed some 130 people. Meanwhile, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has expressed his sadness over the death of Ms Lo. He knows the family and had attended her wedding last year. Upon learning the tragic news, SM Goh visited Ms Lo’s father-in-law, Mr S. Puhaindran, and his family on Friday evening. Mr Puhaindran is a veteran grassroots leader in Mr Goh’s Marine Parade constituency.

“It’s a tragedy for Mr Puhaindran. The son was married last year. They just celebrated their first anniversary this year. I was there at the wedding. So I too was quite shocked by the tragic event,” said Mr Goh. Acting Prime Minister Professor S Jayakumar said he and his Cabinet colleagues are also painfully saddened by the news of the death of Ms Lo.

In a statement issued late Friday night, he said the loss of any life to terrorism is sad, and the loss of a fellow Singaporean is a pain more keenly and closely felt by every Singaporean.

Professor Jayakumar said the foreign ministry officials have been on the ground with the victim’s family in Singapore and Mumbai since the first time Singapore learnt of Ms Lo being held hostage. The officers are working with the Indian authorities to bring her back home.

Professor Jayakumar stressed that terrorism is a threat that spares no one, and this tragic event underscores the imperative for all to be constantly vigilant, and the need for the international community to band together to combat this threat . . . ‘’