[Top: Her casket reached her family home at 5.45pm yesterday.]

by Tay Yek Keak

I HAVE never really felt the nearness of senseless danger, until now.

No Singaporean had ever been killed in an overseas terrorist attack before.

I realised the next day that I had met the brother-in-law of the victim, Ms Lo Hwei Yen, several times before.

My mum broke her arm in a fall in July, and he was the doctor who treated her with such consummate care and expertise that we looked forward to seeing him in the hospital each time.

We saw him with his team of nurses. He was so busy, yet so helpful. I imagine him now in sudden, inexplicable grief.

I can't put the picture away.

I can't put the picture of a city under attack away.

Things have changed irrevocably.

Things I've seen on TV and heard from friends have suddenly been converging upon me - as if to emphasise that this scourge of terror is an issue for every Singaporean, no matter who or where they are.

About two months ago, I met a visitor from India - a Ferrari fan - on the chartered bus to the pit grandstand of the Formula One race.

He told me proudly about his city Mumbai, formerly Bombay, and invited me to go there. It's an exciting place, he said.

I saw it being pummelled, the scene of abject carnage now. At about the same time, my friend Geoff Malone, architect and founder of the Singapore International Film Festival, was describing to me the splendour of the Taj Mahal Hotel.

He had stayed there previously during a film festival, and was impressed by its arch windows and iconic red domes. The past few days, I have seen the building, engulfed by flames and black smoke, on TV.

I never really understood how close and random violence can be - until now.

Even when I was interviewing former American vice-president Al Gore - on the eve of Sept 11's fifth anniversary in
Hong Kong two years ago, for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth - the proximity of danger and the agony of loss was not impressed upon me.

I asked him how he felt at that time. He told me he'd rather be home with his family.

I really didn't get his point because it sounded like something that was primarily his problem, not mine.

But one swift, terrible outcome has changed all that.

Indeed, the images of the Taj Mahal Hotel with its windows on fire reminded me of the siege of the Iranian embassy in London, which the SAS - Britain's anti-terrorist unit - had to break into to rescue hostages.

That was 28 years ago. It looked exciting then.

Not anymore. This time, it's different. This time it has hit home by hitting one of us.

Ms Lo, as we're beginning to learn from news reports, led a vibrant life, marked by many similar things we'd do without batting an eyelid.

She went to the Kylie Minogue concert just before she left for Mumbai. My friends were there too. She enjoyed good food and wine. I like that too.

She had a husband, a job, many friends, a loving family and a bright, young life to enjoy.

All she did wrong, if that's the word to use, was to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. A brief stay is not supposed to turn into a fatal one.

A work trip sounds normal, simply because it's supposed to be so.

I've met someone to whom the victim was dear. Someone I see in grief now. My heart goes out to him and his family.

The 17th-century English poet John Donne once wrote: "Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind."

We are mankind, and we are diminished.

myp@sph.com.sg

For more my paper stories click here.