"We, the citizens of Singapore"

So begins Singapore's national pledge which all Singapore students from the Primary, Secondary to the Junior Colleges, without exception, make every school day. I said this pledge, like every student today, in my own time as a student, for 12 years. It is a pledge that is familiar and rings true to this day, if only because it is like a mantra - something you would perform because you have come to believe in it, which was exactly what its creator, Mr S Rajaratnam, originally intended.

The man who penned this pledge has died. Mr S Rajaratnam, who for more than 3 decades, was Singapore's face and voice to the outside world, died yesterday at about 3.15pm. I learnt of his death on the bus home from work, on a TV mobile ticker tape. He had been out of sight for a long time, so learning of his death didn't come as a shock, rather it was one of sadness and a sense that part of your life and experiences as a person growing up in Singapore is now past.

He was absent at the launch of a book on 40 years of the Singapore Foreign Service due to ill-health. Of all people, he should have been present, having created the Foreign Service when none existed. But we now know that he has been in ill-health for quite some time. Mr Lee Kuan Yew, erstwhile political boss and long-time friend, revealed that Rajaratnam did not recognise him as early as 1998, some 8 years ago. Dementia had already set in - a condition many old people suffer from, including my father.

Farewell, Mr S Rajaratnam. A nation mourns your passing.

Channel News Asia's Farewell to Mr S Rajaratnam