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.