manlion
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2013
- Messages
- 7,568
- Reaction score
- -3
People from southern Indian regions around Tiruchirappalli city, such as Mannargudi, Pudukkottai, Ullikkottai and Alangudi, travelled to Singapore for work and business from the 1920s. They now make up a large proportion of the 500,000 Tamil-origin Singapore citizens.
Although 7,000km apart, the families in Singapore and Tamil Nadu even shop from the same markets. Vegetables and fruit are flown to Singapore every day from Tiruchirappalli.
Emigrants bring a piece of Singapore back home too: English fluency, two-storey modern houses, fast motorbikes, lavish weddings, colleges for women, and shops named after Singapore malls, such as VivoCity and Eastpoint. Young people here plot a way to get to Singapore, through work or marriage.
Said Mr Karunanidhi Raja, 53, a seventh-generation emigrant who was an accountant in a construction company in Singapore for 25 years: "Unlike the Middle East (another popular destination for work for South Indian emigrants), Singapore offers us a more financially stable and respectable experience. There is cultural comfort too - some nephew or aunt will be resident there, many Tamil speakers, our own rice and curry."
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, however, as many migrant workers returned home after job loss or to care for their parents, the love affair with Singapore has turned into separation anxiety.
Mr Indrajit Veerakumar, 29, an oil rig operator for two years in Singapore came home to Melathiruppalakkudi village in October last year and is trying hard to find a way to return to Singapore.
His company's project ended last April, but he had stayed in a dormitory, waiting for new work. In the end, he could not bear the suffocation of being locked in with 14 men after four quarantine spells.
When he received confirmation that he was free of Covid-19, he immediately applied for a place in an Indian government evacuation flight. He is now spending his savings renovating his ancestral house.
"With a two-storey house and a job in Singapore, I will have better chances at finding a bride in these parts," he said, bashfully. He has not yet found a new job.
People who were used to the idea of Singapore being only four hours and a helpful uncle away are now having to navigate complex travel plans due to visas expiring, shrinking employment and travel bans.
"Everyone is eager to go back before their work permit or S Pass expires because new jobs are not easy to get," said Mr Dhanabalan Manibalan, 43, a site superintendent at a construction firm who is home on leave.
A new work permit now costs $4,500 to $5,000, he said. An S Pass like his is $6,000 to $8,000. Then there is an extra $2,200 for the mandatory on-arrival quarantine.
"I risked this expense and came because I wanted to spend time with my mother, wife and kids," Mr Dhanabalan said, as he helped his toddler wash his hands after lunch.
He wanted to go back before his visa expires next month but there is a spanner in the works again. With a severe second wave of cases in India, Singapore has further tightened travel restrictions.
In limbo, returnees were making the most of their time at home. Local Tamil millionaires, who invested in construction, restaurant and trading businesses in Singapore, were planning a Lee Kuan Yew museum in Pudukkottai, but after Covid-19 struck, they shifted their focus to creating a local farm producers' collective for returnees.
Tired of waiting for flights to resume last year, Mr Nallathambi Thamilarasan, 42, started a canteen for agricultural workers in Ullikottai village. He earns a quarter of his previous salary as an electrician in Singapore.
In his lush village, Mr Rengarajan Natarajan, 34, thinks of his life in Singapore, where he was a construction site supervisor for six years. There, he was also NR2, a Tamil poet who won a prize in Singapore's first Migrant Workers Poetry Competition in 2014.
The alien sights in a foreign land, his ache for home, the pressure of financial obligations and his older brother's suicide had poured out of him in verse. In a poem, called Pluses And Minuses Of An Immigrant Life, he writes: "It is because we are here that our sand huts become palaces/our artificial jewellery becomes gold… But this is a pilgrimage that reeks of money."
In 2017, Singapore publisher Vishal Daryanomel filmed the life of migrant workers through Mr Rengarajan's poetry in the documentary Between Pudukkottai & Singapore. In the film, Mr Rengarajan says: "Usually poetry is formed from a person's pain. The more painful it is, it forces expression."
In July last year, he flew home to care for his wife, who had suffered a miscarriage. Now, she and their unborn child are his priorities.
"I help my parents in the paddy field and then work as a cashier in a shop in a nearby town. It's not a aha-oho (great) life, but it is my life," he said.
Since he left Singapore, Mr Rengarajan has not written a single poem. He is Covid-19 free, he said, but the coronavirus might have caught his tongue. "I feel hope, I feel fear. But somehow, I cannot find the words to express them."
www.straitstimes.com
Although 7,000km apart, the families in Singapore and Tamil Nadu even shop from the same markets. Vegetables and fruit are flown to Singapore every day from Tiruchirappalli.
Emigrants bring a piece of Singapore back home too: English fluency, two-storey modern houses, fast motorbikes, lavish weddings, colleges for women, and shops named after Singapore malls, such as VivoCity and Eastpoint. Young people here plot a way to get to Singapore, through work or marriage.
Said Mr Karunanidhi Raja, 53, a seventh-generation emigrant who was an accountant in a construction company in Singapore for 25 years: "Unlike the Middle East (another popular destination for work for South Indian emigrants), Singapore offers us a more financially stable and respectable experience. There is cultural comfort too - some nephew or aunt will be resident there, many Tamil speakers, our own rice and curry."
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, however, as many migrant workers returned home after job loss or to care for their parents, the love affair with Singapore has turned into separation anxiety.
Mr Indrajit Veerakumar, 29, an oil rig operator for two years in Singapore came home to Melathiruppalakkudi village in October last year and is trying hard to find a way to return to Singapore.
His company's project ended last April, but he had stayed in a dormitory, waiting for new work. In the end, he could not bear the suffocation of being locked in with 14 men after four quarantine spells.
When he received confirmation that he was free of Covid-19, he immediately applied for a place in an Indian government evacuation flight. He is now spending his savings renovating his ancestral house.
"With a two-storey house and a job in Singapore, I will have better chances at finding a bride in these parts," he said, bashfully. He has not yet found a new job.
People who were used to the idea of Singapore being only four hours and a helpful uncle away are now having to navigate complex travel plans due to visas expiring, shrinking employment and travel bans.
"Everyone is eager to go back before their work permit or S Pass expires because new jobs are not easy to get," said Mr Dhanabalan Manibalan, 43, a site superintendent at a construction firm who is home on leave.
A new work permit now costs $4,500 to $5,000, he said. An S Pass like his is $6,000 to $8,000. Then there is an extra $2,200 for the mandatory on-arrival quarantine.
"I risked this expense and came because I wanted to spend time with my mother, wife and kids," Mr Dhanabalan said, as he helped his toddler wash his hands after lunch.
He wanted to go back before his visa expires next month but there is a spanner in the works again. With a severe second wave of cases in India, Singapore has further tightened travel restrictions.
In limbo, returnees were making the most of their time at home. Local Tamil millionaires, who invested in construction, restaurant and trading businesses in Singapore, were planning a Lee Kuan Yew museum in Pudukkottai, but after Covid-19 struck, they shifted their focus to creating a local farm producers' collective for returnees.
Tired of waiting for flights to resume last year, Mr Nallathambi Thamilarasan, 42, started a canteen for agricultural workers in Ullikottai village. He earns a quarter of his previous salary as an electrician in Singapore.
In his lush village, Mr Rengarajan Natarajan, 34, thinks of his life in Singapore, where he was a construction site supervisor for six years. There, he was also NR2, a Tamil poet who won a prize in Singapore's first Migrant Workers Poetry Competition in 2014.
The alien sights in a foreign land, his ache for home, the pressure of financial obligations and his older brother's suicide had poured out of him in verse. In a poem, called Pluses And Minuses Of An Immigrant Life, he writes: "It is because we are here that our sand huts become palaces/our artificial jewellery becomes gold… But this is a pilgrimage that reeks of money."
In 2017, Singapore publisher Vishal Daryanomel filmed the life of migrant workers through Mr Rengarajan's poetry in the documentary Between Pudukkottai & Singapore. In the film, Mr Rengarajan says: "Usually poetry is formed from a person's pain. The more painful it is, it forces expression."
In July last year, he flew home to care for his wife, who had suffered a miscarriage. Now, she and their unborn child are his priorities.
"I help my parents in the paddy field and then work as a cashier in a shop in a nearby town. It's not a aha-oho (great) life, but it is my life," he said.
Since he left Singapore, Mr Rengarajan has not written a single poem. He is Covid-19 free, he said, but the coronavirus might have caught his tongue. "I feel hope, I feel fear. But somehow, I cannot find the words to express them."
Many in India's 'Little Singapore' keen to return to Republic
Many migrant workers have returned home after losing their jobs or to care for family. Read more at straitstimes.com.
Last edited:
