The liberals lauded Jessica as the embodiment of courage, magnanimity and grace that all Singaporeans should aspire to emulate. The conservatives could not rightfully denounce her so they chose to remain silent. A handful of incorrigible, racist xenophobes among the keyboard warriors made the mistake of attacking her for deserting her own people and crossing over to what they derisively termed “the dark side”. These few were immediately besieged and expunged. There was a general consensus online that Jessica was untouchable.

In contrast, the post-riot implementations rolled out by Sharon as the MP of Jalan Besar constituency were not well-received. She had vocally supported the police’s issuance of a total ban of alcohol sales in Little India. The initial resentment was felt only by shopkeepers like Nayagam Ranjan, who saw their weekly revenue and profits plummet. But over time, the residents of Little India began to share the resentment of inconvenience as they had to travel out of Little India to purchase their liquor. At one point, a regular customer came to Nayagam’s provision shop and persuaded the man to sell him liquor. The regular customer had brought along his own tote bag and promised to hide his purchase inside. Nayagam could not resist the temptation of clearing some of his stock of beer that was taking up space in his storage room.

The regular customer was grateful and began to pass on the lead that liquor could be purchased at Nayagam’s provision shop if the customer was discreet. Very quickly, the old stocks of beer were cleared. Disappointed customers began to badger Nayagam to acquire resupplies. As it was impossible for a vendor truck to roll in to the car park without inciting curiosity and inquisition, Nayagam arranged for his son Kaustubh to pick up the new supplies in their own van, park it behind the provision shop and wait until two o’clock in the morning to unload the cargo.

Unfortunately for Nayagam, one of his rival shopkeepers was an insomniac and, one morning, chose to have a smoke while leaning out of his kitchen window at 2am. That was how his clandestine resupply operation was discovered. Fortunately for Nayagam, this rival did not go running to the police. Instead, he marched up to Nayagam’s provision shop and asked to have a word in private. He, too, had a load of beer in his storage room he wanted to get rid of. He would be happy to sell them to Nayagam at a slight mark-up from the wholesale price. Nayagam did not dare say no.