I last spoke to him on Saturday, September 21, 2019, a week before he left us. He had this gentle way of always asking, “How are you?”. When I asked him how he was, for the first time ever he said he wasn’t well. It was unlike him to say so. Perhaps he had a premonition of what was to happen, after all he’d been in considerable physical pain for nearly two years. He had promised to return from the hospital and catch up. But when I called back on Monday (September 23, 2019) night California time, his wife, Mrs Deepi Singh, told me that he was still at the Kaiser Permanente. I never got to speak with him again, and learnt about his passing away on September 28, 2019 through a whatsapp message from my friend in the Reunion Island, Jean-Régis Ramsamy. Apparently Mr Singh hadn’t returned home.

May God bless his soul. I know he’ll be making newer friends, wherever he is. I want to tell him this: “Personally, Sir, I’ve lost a mentor. And much, much more.”