Sweet potatoes

You only have to look into his eyes to see that he bears a burden too heavy to be described with words. Simple kindnesses bring tears to his eyes, even in his smiles his pain seeps through.

Uncle Chong's son is on death row. He got there because he was caught with more than a certain weight of illegal drugs as he was crossing our borders, and that, under the law of this land comes with a mandatory death penalty. The reasons are not important, your ignorance does not save you, being deceived into doing it is not considered, who's masterminding the whole syndicate is not important. Only the fact that at that point in time you had illegal substances on you. The only way a man can walk away with his life, is if the president would grant pardon. And that, has never happened in the whole of our history.

I don't know what the arguments are for the mandatory death penalty. But I do know the man whose son is on death row. I have spoken to him, seen his tears, felt his love for his son and sensed his desperation.

Every Monday morning at about 5am, Uncle Chong would faithfully ride his scooter or take a bus into Singapore to visit his son in prison. After his visit, he might stop by the lawyers' office to give the lawyer a sack of sweet potatoes from his farm and see if there's any news about the case then head home. (M. Ravi, uncle Chong son's lawyer with a bleeding heart, has taken this case on as with many other cases he's taken on to help those who can't speak for themselves. Ravi fights to change the laws that systematically dis-empower the poor and lowest in society.) In JB Malaysia where he lives, Uncle Chong works hard at several jobs so that he can pay for any fees that might be incurred at the lawyers. In the mornings he would sell food at a stall, in the afternoon, he tends a plot of land that his friend has loaned him to plant crops to sell - this of course is back breaking work, in between he is an estate agent and takes potential occupiers to view rooms and stalls. As and when there are makeshift markets, he would rent a stall space to sell toys and various knick-knacks. He rents out most of the rooms in his home and keeps just a small room for himself so that he has a place to lay his head.

Even with all he bears on his shoulders, the few times I've met and spoken to him, he's kind and generous. When we visited his farm in Malaysia, he insists on buying us lunch at a restaurant, though lunch for him often means a slice of bread or two. Gives us sacks of rambutans, sweet potatoes, guavas, durians... whichever was in season at that time. I will now always associate sweet potatoes with the desperate struggle of a man.

I won't paint him out to be a saint, his wife and daughters have left him, his son is in prison caught for something he wasn't supposed to do. I can't imagine what transpired in these lives, in this family. Nobody chooses, even if they picked a path, to be in such situations. A punishment as permanent as death should not be used as a blanket rule without considering all factors or considering ways for recourse.