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Sporting Life
The damaging yet restoring hands of SEA Games-bound boxer Danisha Mathialagan
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Before she puts on her boxing gloves, Danisha Mathialagan wraps her hands in metres of cloth.
ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
Follow topic:
- Danisha Mathialagan, 28, is a boxer and embalmer with skilled hands, excelling in both seemingly contradictory arts.
- As a 48kg fighter training for the SEA Games and a potential spot in the 2028 Olympics, she values the control and solitude of boxing.
- She finds satisfaction in both the physicality of boxing and the gentle, respectful restoration of bodies, highlighting her consistency and work ethic.
AI generated
At first glance her instruments of pain and preservation seem unremarkable. Calluses on the palms. Knuckles unbruised. Skin unblemished. But look closer and her hands are larger than normal, big enough, she laughs, for her friends to compare sizes. Her fingers are long, as if they belong to an artist, but just not the type you think. They don’t draw or sculpt. No, those fingers do fantastically paradoxical things.
When they’re bent and coiled and clenched, those fingers, encased in a 10-ounce boxing glove, become a fist which pounds live bodies. When her fingers are open, those slim hands, now slid into soft black gloves, are used to gently disinfect, preserve and restore dead bodies.
