Hashwini’s retort was buried beneath the spontaneous applause that erupted as the speech on stage came to an end. The corporate lawyer-cum-gay activist who was purportedly sleeping with the son of a high-profile MP thanked the crowd and introduced the next speaker. Omala Subramaniam was a well-known personality in the activist community. In her capacity as the director of Migrant Workers Count Too, she had done much to safeguard the interests of migrant workers against exploitation by seedy employers and the procedural stonewalling by the governmental bureaucracy. But today, Omala was speaking in her capacity as the blogger behind The Tornado.

“Let’s give it up for Omala Subramaniam!”

A deafening round of applause erupted as an Indian lady marched up to the stage. She was short in stature; the microphone stand was parallel to her forehead. Instead of adjusting the height of the stand, she plucked the microphone out of the clip-hold, stepped forward till she reached the edge and pointed back at the stand, “I am sorry but I can’t be near that thing. I am so angry right now that I might just grab that and smash it down on somebody’s head.”

The audience responded with random laughter. Someone shouted the name of a person he thought Omala should aim the microphone stand at.

“I was a sweet child who grew up to be an angry teenager. And it’s not because of the hormones—I became angry when I began to learn about all the cruelty, injustice and inhumanity that existed in the world I live in. I remember, back in secondary school I read an article in Life magazine about child brides in Yemen. Girls as young as five or six were betrothed to men twenty to forty years older. And some of these husbands did not wait to demand their conjugal rights. There were reports of physical and sexual abuse of these child brides, and miscarriages were not only common but often fatal.”

“The same article listed the many countries that responded to a call from International Human Rights Watch to voice their opposition to the practice. And guess what? Singapore was not on the list.”

The crowd began to boo, but Omala gesticulated at them to calm down.

“This was back in the late seventies. We used to have this annual visit in my secondary school from either a cabinet minister or member of parliament who would give motivational speeches and pep talks. I was first to the mike when it came time for the MP to answer questions. Referencing the Life magazine article, I asked why was Singapore not listed among the countries that had voiced their opposition to the practice of child brides. As you can imagine, the MP was embarrassed because he did not have an answer.”

“Did the principal send you for detention after that?” someone in the audience shouted, eliciting some laughter.