 But Durai says: I bear no malice against anyone
IT seems almost strange to leave out the honorific for TT Durai.
Now a convicted criminal, it's no longer Mr Durai, just Durai.
But his fall from grace has been nothing if not spectacular.
He once courted the rich and powerful.
Today, they avoid him.
Even the people he called friends testified against him.
Yesterday, in court, he surprised the media with his demeanour.
Often aloof when it comes to reporters, Durai was all smiles and ready to speak.
Even when faced with an uncomfortable question, he simply shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
Durai, looking nothing like a 58-year-old man, was as charming as ever. But cut through the veneer and the picture of a seemingly lonely man appears.
Over the three weeks of the trial, he spoke to The New Paper candidly whenever we approached him during breaks.
Other than his two sons, and lawyers, Durai didn't exchange niceties with anyone. Few bothered to approach him.
He ate his lunch alone in court while his sons and lawyers ate elsewhere. He preferred his wife's cooking, he said.
The health fanatic had simple meals. Rice with meat and vegetables wrapped in aluminium foil tucked in a black Hugo Boss paper bag.
When a passer-by wished him luck, he replied: 'Thank you. It's not often that people wish me well nowadays.'
Not even friends, it seems.
Some of the people he built up during his more than 30-year association with the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) testified against him.
NO ILL FEELING
Durai denied having ill feeling towards them. He said: 'They're good people. They came to court to tell the truth about what had happened.'
Is he a good man too? After all his name, Thambirajah Tharmadurai, means 'a charitable man' in Tamil. Now people mock his name as a cruel irony, in light of the NKF scandal.
He said: 'A cruel irony? Did I not do any charity in my life? I've helped so many patients and I'm glad some of them still come to wish me well during the trial.'
Since leaving NKF - his passion since he was a law undergraduate in 1969 - Durai has been spending time with his family.
It took the NKF saga to get him to spend more time at home. He used to spend more than 12 hours a day at work.
Obsessive? Perhaps.
It prompted his daughter, then 17 and in junior college, to e-mail Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, lamenting that her father spent too much time in the office.
All that has changed.
Now he spends more time with his wife and children - two sons and a daughter. He beams with pride when talking about them.
When his daughter received her A-level results in March, he broke into a rare smile during the trial. His son had passed him a note saying she had scored four As.
He still exercises a lot. Now he goes to a club in the east to exercise.
Otherwise, he is at home in a rental bungalow off Mountbatten Road, where he lives with his family and mother.
Few friends drop by. Truth is, few want to be known as his friends.
READS A LOT
So he reads a lot. He said: 'I read a lot, especially politics. And I also have work. I have other sources of income.'
At one point, Durai was linked to at least five companies, including MediaCorp TV 12 and Amcol Holdings (now Asia Food & Properties).
These days the only people who do drop by are the curious ones and journalists.
He said: 'My wife and mother were bothered when reporters came to my home. But then again you're also doing your job.
'At most, I'd just avoid talking to the press. I do know my neighbours were irritated.'
Does he bear any ill feeling towards those who had exposed him?
He said: 'That's all history and I don't want to reflect on it. Life has to go on. I take each day as it comes and I bear no malice against anyone.'
He told the New Paper of his favourite quote, an Abraham Lincoln mantra he subscribes to: 'With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right.'  To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. | 
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