Words and photos by Eszter Papp
With his hair matted down over his forehead, shirt and trousers drenched and water squelching in his sandals 59-year-old Ng Poh Seng, pictured above, summed up the mood of tens of thousands of rain-soaked mourners on the streets of Singapore today."He meant everything to us," he said, as he stood with his umbrella clasped under his arm while rain lashed down on him. Mr. Seng said he remembered the 1968 National Day Parade was also a washout, but that people stood firm, intent on seeing Lee Kuan Yew.
“It’s the same today. We are here for him. The rain is nothing. For what he did for this country I will stand here for as long as it takes to say goodbye properly."
Mr. Seng, who refused to use his umbrella, was huddled in among thousands of young and old lining the Padang as the late Lee Kuan Yew's funeral procession past by on its 15.4-kilometre route through the city.
While the 21-gun salute rang in the ears of mourners at the Padang, cheers and shouts of “umbrellas down” reverberated through the crowd as the procession past by.
There were many people in the crowd who had been there since the early hours of the morning. No one complained and the rain deterred no one.
“Lee Kuan Yew! Lee Kuan Yew! Lee Kuan Yew!”
That was the chant that rang through the Padang and throughout the city today as Singaporeans stood resolute in the rain to say farewell to their founding father.
↧