Migrant Poetry Competition,Dec'2015 : A Photo Essay

The word 'Migrant' has been described in the English Dictionary as 'a person who moves from one place to another in order to find work or better living conditions.' It's a very crude assessment to be fair for it strips the Humane side of the person living under the tag of a migrant and makes him just a face in the crowd.Most people wouldn't be able to distinguish a migrant if they see him in a crowd for a migrant is like sugar in water.They have the adhering capability of dissolving themselves in the prevalent thousands of faces in a crowd.They become so much a part of the environment they adapt to that they never stand out.


But like all things in life there are exceptions.And some migrant faces are meant only to stand out for these individuals have been destined to break the norms of conventional ideas and thoughts and echo in the minds of the rigid that like all things in life there are exceptions to everything.

This was inevitably highlighted on December'13th when the Migrants gathered at the Possibility Room,Level 5 in the National Library to participate and present before the world a new face of the migrant ethos : The Thinking Migrant.The event was aptly held in the Possibility Room as the room was in fact filled with possibilities- possibilities of transforming the view and image people have in minds that the migrant is just a worker or just a laborer or just a cleaner or a domestic help.A migrant is a much as thinking being as any other person and at times much more for they have witnessed the hardships of life and shaped their skill to provide a voice to their thoughts.

As the respectable judges Mr.Alvin Pang,Mr.Kripal Singh and Ms.Goh Ben Choo took to their seats and the event began,it was evident that it would indeed lead to a remarkable evening.The program started and as the podium was graced by one migrant poet after the other,a simple message stirred through the minds of the audience that migrants are in fact capable of much more than what meets the eye.

Their thoughts and visions,their dreams and desires is what fuels their life in a foreign country.They may be wearing a uniform,their hands and feet may be dirty and soiled,their faces may be covered with lines and wrinkles but their hearts are filled with love,compassion and hope for a future where they are not looked down upon by people but embraced with open arms.

One such poet who has been nurtured by the prestigious Banglar Kantha newspaper and Mr.AKM Mohsin,Editor-in-chief of Banglar Kantha,migrant poet Mohar Khan had recited before the crowd his poem 'Lamppost' whose last lines reads as :

"Waking up from my nightmare, I become an apparition,
I am not just a migrant worker, I am a family’s lamppost."

And if you come to think of it then in fact the migrants are all Lampposts because they are slowly clearing the doubts and preconceived notions of the people and bringing forth in them an awareness that Migrants are in fact people who may be sugar in water but its's them and their physical and emotional labor which has made the country they are living in such a sweet and peaceful place to live in.

A photo essay on Tom Soper's Book Launch : Singapore - A portrait in diversity,Nov'15

Diversity is the spice of life - Have you ever heard that saying? If not,then it's okay for I made it up.But before you correct me let me assure you that I do know the right proverb.However if you are someone who has lived in Singapore for long then you automatically come to realise that here diversity is in fact the spice of the Singaporean life.In SG you will come across all sorts of diversity starting from food,music,culture and extending beyond the varied milieu of the transient into the unfazed minds of the in-transient.

Yesterday SG celebrated a similar thing when the prodigal son,Tom Soper,a professional photographer,returned back to Singapore with a book he had written on the diversity of Singapore.However Tom had chosen to specifically highlight the Migrant diversity in the book as he had chosen 50 people from 50 countries to be a case study in his beautifully etched book.

The book differs in it's treatment from other books of the genre as it is more of a montage on the lives of the various migrant people who having left the comforts and the condos of the motherland,have chosen Singapore as their more immediate home and have tried to dissolve in it like sugar in a steaming cup of tea.But as diversity is something that always stands out,these wonderful individuals had caught Mr.Soper's kodak eyes and hence it resulted in this compact but picturesque book.

Some of the fellow subjects mentioned in the book were present to grace the humble book launch.Out of them a well known face was Mr.AKM Mohsin,Editor-in-chief of Banglar Kantha who has been living with his family in Singapore for over a decade now.Mr.Mohsin is a renowned migrant worker activist who has always championed the cause of the Bangladeshi migrant worker here in Singapore.

The book launch was an epic success.I know that because when an event is supposed to end at 9 p.m. and yet the guests depart at 9:30 p.m. which is very unnatural for the punctual Singaporean crowd,you know the event is a success.A very memorable thing about the event was capturing Tom's delightfully lit up face as he stood beside Mr.AKM Mohsin for a photo.It was nice to see Writer and Subject stand side by side and once again create the 51st Portrait in Diversity.

Singapore Writer's Festival,Nov'15 : A Canvas for Unfulfilled Dreams.

Rarely does life present before us such cosmic events when our fiercely guarded and nurtured dreams are presented before the World and we stand in awe of the birth of our dream-child.Today the Singapore Writers Festival in collaboration with the prestigious bengali newspaper Banglar Kantha came together to give a voice to the unheard,unrecognized servitude milleu of migrant workers who on other days of the week are nothing more than just another face in the crowd.Today this amalgamated mass of people stood out individually as they put forward before the hierarchical world their unbroken dreams,aspirations and desires.

As the room filled up with Singaporean,Indian,Tamilian,Malay communities...the message was clear.That its not just the Bangladeshi community but people all over the world who feel as outcasts in a foreign country.They have various unseen catlysts contributing to this migration yet the end result remains the same- that in this vogaye that the migrants have undertaken to find a destination,they are all the same.Here they are all people who are a part of the crowd but each wounded with their own suffering,hopelessness,void and a multitude of unuttered battles that have led them to this place.

What Banglar Kantha has done is given these people a shred of dignity,self esteem and value for their struggles which would otherwise have gone unnoticed and untraced through the effigies of time.The newspaper owner Mr.AKM Mohsin has battled relentlessly for the migrant cause since 2006 and is still an avid propagator for the cause.Today as he sat on the prestigious seat of the Guest Speaker for the migrant worker along with other luminious dignitaries like Mr.Shivaji Das and poet Alvin Panh,what you would notice about him is not a man who has reached his destination,but a warrior who is only on a brief,momentary rest till he adorns his battle armor and stands valiantly in the battlefield,steady and strong,to fight for them who have forgotten to fight for themselves.

The 3 Unities of Drama and the Migrant life in Singapore.

Life has a strange habit of presenting two sides of the same phenomenon to man leaving it to his discretion and choice as to which side he may choose.This is very applicable in the life of a migrant worker.If you divide the life of a migrant worker according to the 3 Classical Unities of TIME,PLACE AND ACTION in DRAMA then you will realise that Shakespeare was not wrong in saying that,

"All The World's A Stage.
All the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances..."
(Act II,Scene VIII,As You Like It)

When I first arrived in Singapore I had but a bird's eye view of the Country I had landed into.If you Google Singapore,you are presented with flashy,hi-def and meticulously arranged images of what an amazing place it is.If you are a novice like me who has not stayed anywhere outside of India then you will be lieued into thinking that unlike your home country,this country has no issues at its grass root level.That everything here is an edited version of that grand collage which had been spoon-fed to you while you were back home.

Now the moment you arrive here,this city assaults your senses.You get thrown into the organised chaos of this place.Its cultural beauty as well as the amazing attraction of its clandestinely lit cities and clear blue lakes lull your senses into ecstasy.But sitting there if you care to look hard enough a very different portrait is held before your eyes.Along with the neat streets and the big power hungry engines roaring beside you on the road,you will often encounter the tired,hungry and hopeless eyes of the migrant workers.And its here that while taking a bus ride from the Banglar Kantha Newspaper office to back home,I reflected on how the life of an migrant follows the course of the the 3 Classical Unities of Drama.


1.UNITY OF TIME.
Well this one is the easiest to relate to because no matter where you have been and whoever you are,at some point in your life you must have faced the Wall.The wall symbolises a dead-end.Its a time in your life when you have no where to go,nothing seems to be working.Whatever pre-augmented plans and actions you had decided upon,it just doesn't seem to be working.The same happens to a migrant worker.Often faced with the bitter and uncomprehending realities of life like hunger,poverty,starvation and diseases,they are compelled to hit the wall.When feeding a family is the utmost challenge then one doesn't and cannot take idealistic moral grounds.Hence knowing that migrating to another country will in no way help them escape their problems,they still pack-up their lives and leave back all things known to start a new life in a foreign land where even if they dedicated all their lives to the betterment of the host-country,they would be still be deprived of the basic necessities of life - hygienic food,proper shelter and and clothing.Once they arrive here they are like a hamster on a wheel,running endlessly behind the mirages of standard living,slowly losing their self respect in front of the monstrous exploitation gnawing at their lives.

2.UNITY OF PLACE.
To a Country embroiled by its own problems,the outer gleam of a foreign country is the same as to a villager on coming across an European.They are too taken aback by the fair skin,the dimpled cheeks,the hazel eyes.It attracts them and consumes them so much so that they often end up as a laughing stock to a bunch of foreigners.The words of the National Anthem "Jaya he,Jaya he.." to the motherland are erased out of memory for a brief period and all that remains is the transfixation that the one feels in the company of the Firangi.And hence our migrant bhais,who have left their homelands,their families,doting wives and aged parents on stepping on foreign ground forget the bucket-list of priorities and get caught up in this Firangi land.Too late do their realise that in the end,a soil akin to us can never belong to us and that no matter whether we are drinking Kopi or having a lunch of Luchi-Alur Dom,we are in fact in foreign land and the people here will be as much an alien to us and our problems as you will be to the problems of a stranger.

3.UNITY OF ACTION.
Life of any individual is defined by the action he or she has taken at certain cervices which have shaped up their future.Unfortunately for the migrants of Bangladesh this epitome of reality is not true.Like us they cannot choose the family they are born in.Its pre-ordained.Now we may say that so that millions of people yet they don't migrate off to other places but rather choose to stay in their country.Well to them I would request to read more thoroughly the UNITY OF TIME and enlighten themselves.Even if one does not want,often one is forced to do many things which make them helpless as well as leave them unto the mercy of others.While choosing to board an aircraft and leave all that they know,its this action which runs along parallel to the courses of their lives further branching out into other saddened vicissitudes that often end in suicides and other life threatening disasters leaving them maimed emotionally as well as physically.

And hence here we stop to reflect,comprehend and understand that the migrants,though some of them may not even know,are by an invisible stroke of destiny unified under the three classical unities of drama as well as life.A famous painter had once said that art is nothing but a mere reflection of life.How we wish such was not the case with the migrant workers of Singapore.

Swapno Dana - On wings of dreams.

What is that one thing that separates a human being from other species put on the Earth for survival?? What is that one attribute that has provided us superior hierarchy in this constant battle for supremacy?? Why is it that after years of evolution,We,the humans still continue to dominate the lesser animals though at times they are faster than us,smarter than us and even at times stronger than us.What is that one thing that distinguishes us from them and further permeates us into the ecstasy of being the mightier of the species?? If you think about it then the answer is so simple that it will not strike you at the first go.As often happens with simple things,we often tend to overlook the basic and concentrate our efforts on the complex,failing to understand that the complex with varied layers will never be as simple and appealing as the basic.The simple yet the most appealing attribute that humans are born with is their infallible ability to HOPE in spite of all odds.That if you turn the pages of history there's a shining example at every page that humans beings have overcome natural disasters,cosmic chaos,war,diseases,pillage only due to one reason-Even when we are standing against everything that is far more powerful than us and we are armed with nothing,we still dare to hope,we still dare to dream.

If you take into consideration the situation that any third-world country tends to suffer from then statistics will point out to you that the situation everywhere is almost the same.People who tend to fall under the highlighted BPL strata often tend to have the worst in all cases.With the Home Government too busy to take care of all the hungry mouths by providing them proper jobs,good food,basic pay and decent medical care...people of such countries often tend to migrate to other countries in lieu of a better life.Most of them happen to be the sole bread earner in the family,with a wife,elderly parents and children to support and provide for.Unable to find anything in their homeland they migrate to far off distances hoping to secure a better life.

Singapore is no different.When I first landed here a week ago,I was very surprised to see the number of Bangladeshi faces I saw in a crowd full of Asians who form a major bulk of the population here and are in no way different from a struggling middle-class man in my country India.Most of the migrant workers in Singapore are not here by choice by rather by compulsion.Most of them have no better ways of earning a standard living in their own country and hence have come here to work and earn a minimum pay so that they can sustain their families back home.The work they do here is enormous compared to the minimum wages they are paid here along with the lack of proper food and housing they are devoid of.All in all its a total loss for them as they happen to have made a lot of personal sacrifices to come here.Some have sold ancestral house and properties,some have been compelled to sell the meagre gold jewellery women wear and some have made sacrifices that they are too saddened or humiliated to utter.

The Bangladeshi migrant workers in Singapore have two things in common if you bother to look at their faces while travelling by the bus or MRT or when you see them on the roads.One-They all carry the stigmata of humiliation and pain which they have and still are facing here.In their homeland,had they stayed there,the might have not earned enough and most nights might have slept with empty stomachs but at least they would still have their self-esteem intact.However when hunger and poverty are no longer states of the might they endure but rather become grim efficacy in their daily lives,their hard working,industrious and educated people are forced to bend their heads and will to survive in a place where they are looked down upon by most sections of the society.


Two-Their faces all light up with HOPE.Having had the wonderful opportunity of meeting and interacting with some migrant workers at a close basis,I have realised that this pain and humiliation too they have taken in their stride.They hope everyday that things will get better,that somehow one day they will be provided with the simplest and basic amenities of life by the Government whose part labour force is constituted by them and instead of bend heads and broken wills,they will have the simple dignity that God had destined every human being on Earth to have.the human dignity that these migrant workers are born with and which they fight so hard to find.


Isn't it high time that we provided them their basic rights so that they may lead a life which is content and happy and one that doesn't come at the cost of their self respect.