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.
