npTribune | The ‘Hobbit’ Returns

The Student Voice of Ngee Ann Polytechnic

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The ‘Hobbit’ Returns

By Amanda Lim ⋅ June 28, 2011 ⋅

For many, cleaning toilets and mopping floors may just be a job but for Ms Pathmavalli, it is her passion and pride.

Ms Pathmavalli D/O S R mops the floors of the Convention Centre with such strength and vigour, no one would think she just had major surgery.

The 62-year-old cleaner of the Convention Centre has returned after a three-month recuperation from her knee surgery. She still bears her battle wound, a six-inch scar that runs down her left knee.

Initially, the thought of being cut up unnerved her, but she mustered up the courage for her children. “My son told me it’s better to go for the operation… So I go and not let my children worry,” she recounts while picking at a scab on her left knee.

In a month, she could climb the stairs and felt ready to be back at work.

Once again, Ms Pathmavalli’s family convinced her to rest at home. After all, her three children were capable of supporting her, and she was still being paid while on medical leave.

“This place was so dirty when I came back,” she says, clicking her tongue and shaking her head in disapproval. She explains that the toilet bowls and sinks turned a yellow hue in her absence, a detail that not many would notice.

Ms Pathmavalli looks forward to her next knee operation, when both her knees will no longer cause her any hindrance.

Retiring, however, is seen as the beginning of the end to her, “If I stop working, who will clean the toilet when it smells of smoke? Yes! Students are still smoking in the toilet!”

She scowls at the thought of her pet peeve, and continues picking on the scabs on her left knee while her sharp eyes scan her building.

About Ms Pathmavalli

Ms Pathmavalli D/O S R, the wildly misunderstood cleaner of the Convention Centre, was documented in the pages of Volume 40, Issue 2 of npTribune. Even two years after it was first published, ‘The ‘Hobbit’ with a Heart of Gold’ still remains as one of the most remembered articles in the campus newspaper. The absence of Ms Pathmavalli this semester sparked off curious questions on her whereabouts thus inspiring this timely update.