The damaging yet restoring hands of boxer Danisha

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.

- Rohit Brijnath Assistant Sports Editor

Above: Danisha Mathialagan pulls on the glove she uses while embalming. Left: At the gym, she wraps her hands in 4m of tape before putting on her boxing gloves. ST PHOTOS: GAVIN FOO

(ST PHOTOS: GAVIN FOO)

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.

Danisha Mathialagan, 28, is an artist of the ring and of the funeral home. She boxes and she embalms. Like her mother, a nurse, and her father, a crane operator, she has dexterous, coordinated hands.

A 48kg fighter headed to her second SEA Games, she’s training on Nov 26 at Leisure Fight Sport gym in a mirrored, crowded room that smells of raw struggle.

Outside the world leisurely moves by, inside Danisha’s hands flick out like an irritated snake, her lungs exhaling a hiss of effort. Lean, light-footed, her voice is as gentle as her art is rough.

What does a good punch feel like?

"When I land (a punch) on someone I can feel their face?" Nice feeling?

"Yes, satisfying," she laughs. "Unfortunately, it feels good. And you want more. Sometimes you get this really nice slapping sound."