On Being An Immigrant
My parents brought me to Singapore in 1994. I remember nothing of that day. I remember nothing of that time.
My mum says I never threw a tantrum about the shock of moving. Then again, I wasn’t one for tantrums apparently. I just asked her a million questions about the world around me. She tells me this is called “remote control”. I ask her what that is in Tamil.
I join Kindergarten, I’m struggling. In Kindergarten. I couldn’t explain or stand up for myself when a teacher asked why I was wearing casual shoes rather than the correct white canvases. I came home upset and told my parents I can’t understand school. They put me in an English enrichment class, encouraging me that I could be a bilingual wonder. I read “ballet” as “ballot” out loud a couple of months ago.
I start primary school. I try to make friends. I’m called pang sai (shit in Mandarin) or oorukari (someone from India in Tamil). Still, I try.
During excursions, kids would animatedly point out the hospitals they were born in when the school bus drove past them. Hospitals with maternity wards were clustered around the same area back then. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t point out where I was born. In Singapore or India for that matter. It was the first of many reminders to come that I’m not from here.
While the storm raged on, my mum let my sister and I fill a bucket with water and float 2 paper boats in there; we wanted to recreate the paper boats we had floated during thunderstorms a few months ago in India. It was fun, but it wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I started compartmentalising my experiences.
Ang paos was a concept I was starting to learn; my Chinese classmates got red packets with money from their relatives during Chinese New Year. It was impossible not to feel the sheer excitement radiating off them, in seeing their relatives and the weekend they would spend visiting different houses. I understood, but also didn’t understand. I know I spent a month, sometimes two visiting my relatives. But it didn’t feel like a casual activity, it felt like a marathon.
I spend Pongal, Deepavali, and all the other colourful Tamil celebrations with my family of four. I recognised envy before I could name it.
The teacher tells my dad during the parent-teacher meeting that I’m not achieving my potential. They start talking about science stream and arts stream, and secondary school choices. I don’t know any of that. All I know is, I’m happy when I’m around my relatives in India.
My parents tell me about the kids back in India who don’t get the opportunities I am getting. I feel guilty. It doesn’t push me to do any better, but I feel like a piece of shit every time a kid from a financially uncomfortable setting would say, “I want to study and become a doctor so I can earn a lot of money.” on Sun TV. I still do.
The theoretical year my family was supposed to move back to India comes. My parents want to stay. For the better futures of my sister and me. They want to apply for a Singapore citizenship. I refuse. I think I shout. I can definitely feel the tears streaming down my face. “Don’t take this away from me,” I plead. My parents insist, “This makes the most sense. Logistically. Financially.” “If it’s about logistics, you and mum apply for it. I don’t want it. NO. PLEASE.” My parents don’t push any further but are heavily confused.
New set of kids, new set of people who discover I’m from India when I join Secondary School. Same sense of marginalisation, slightly renewed. Teenage girls can be particularly mean. But teenage girls who got $50 a week for pocket money while I got $50 a month were in another league.
I had a friend who would go home with me. Sometimes, she would sing out, “I’m going to my paati’s (grandmother’s) house today!” Which meant she wouldn’t be going home with me. It didn’t really bother me. I just wanted to know what it was like. To have clothes, soap, and a toothbrush in a loved one’s home. At any given time. You don’t need to bring these things with you, through customs. It’s already there. For the next time you would come over.
“Okay, fine.” I say, finally giving in to my parents’ persistent requests from the past three years to apply for a Singapore citizenship. We get it, my sister and I are told we need to confirm our choices at the age of 21. I feel conflicted. I don’t feel the excitement of new beginnings. I can’t say I’ve made the wrong decision, but I feel unsettled.
I feel I can’t take it here anymore. I decide to do my degree in India. I ask around, for costs, expenses, lodging, etc. I shortlist universities, for degrees I never pursue. I set plans in motion.
I celebrate my birthday in India for the first time in years. I ask my family to bring me to watch Azhagiya Tamil Magan in an Indian theatre. For the first time in my memory, I feel Singaporean in India. The first chink in my “I belong in India” armour.
Within the span of two years, I start feeling disoriented. I’m Indian in Singapore and Singaporean in India. I no longer think and act like an Indian while in India and like a Singaporean while in Singapore. The boundaries start to blur. I used “lah” when I spoke to a cousin.
‘A’ Levels are around the corner and I don’t want to do my degree in India anymore. I don’t have any hope for my grades but I know for certain I don’t want to do my degree in India anymore. I don’t know what happened, it’s like someone had flipped a switch. So, I stay. I make the choice to stay.
I get an admin job and start making some money while waiting to hear back from unis. I set up a bank account for my paycheques, my first independent account. I fleetingly wonder if I should set one up at the Indian Bank as well like my dad. I realise I’m turning 21 in a couple of years while filling out the form. I wonder why Singapore doesn’t accept dual citizenship.
An immigration officer asks me why I bothered to come back to India since I had a Singapore citizenship during one of my routine visits to India. I’m gobsmacked immigration officers are allowed to speak like this. I feel a rush of anger before years of conditioning against disobeying figures of authority takes over. I don’t have an answer.
I declare my choice to stay a Singapore citizen. For practical reasons. I’m doing my degree here already. I’m probably going to get a job here too. So. Might as well. I recite the Singapore pledge in front of a judge to ascertain my choice, hoping the quivers in my voice pass for nerves. Again, I don’t feel like I’ve made the wrong choice. There’s just this sensation right behind my lungs. And around my heart. In my stomach. The document that declares I’m no a longer citizen of India with the official seal feels like a gut punch. I remember doubling over right there in the High Commission of India as I read it. Someone looked at me in concern. I shove the document at my mum who accompanied me on the trip. I have not looked at it since.
I take taxis to work while figuring out possible ways to get to work without taking the train. Taxi drivers ask, “You Singaporean?” I say “Yes” because it’s easier as I can feel myself protesting. I tell myself to get over it. “You know what it’s like,” I remind myself. “Why Indians always so rude ah?” he states before launching into a rant about all the unjust he has experienced from Indian passengers. I wonder if he’s extra sensitive because of their race. Or if they were an actual menace. I don’t have an answer.
An uncle asks, “You have gotten used to dining tables, haven’t you?” I look around and see my parents, my sister, and I, all holding our plates on our laps. Unlike my Indian relatives who had their plates on the floor. I could no longer bend over and eat while sitting cross-legged on the floor. I don’t know when I lost that skill, that muscle. It feels mundane, it feels arbitrary, it feels like a part of me has died.
I take a 3 day trip to India with my mum, the shortest trip I’ve ever taken there. A relative had passed, the shock had yet to make way for the grief. Yet, people ask us about my marriage. I had wished for them to shut up. Now, I wish I had savoured the trip. I didn’t know it will be the last trip for quite some time.
Someone calls to lecture my family on my wasting reproductive years. “He makes EIGHTY THOUSAND RUPEES a month! What’s the problem?” “It’s barely 1500 Singapore Dollars a month, that’s not even enough for rent.” “You’re working, you can combine incomes.” “Oh, so I get to have the privilege of working after marriage?” “Eat porridge, then.” I stare into the void at night. I don’t have tears; I don’t have anger. The part of me that was just itching to go to India has now blended with the night. I suddenly feel tired and filled with this longing to just go home. Except, I don’t know what home is.
The news rages on about how bad Covid-19 is in India, reporting 5- and 6-digit numbers in daily cases. I feel my stomach acid chewing me from the inside out. I feel the same guilt I felt when I heard of the 2004 Tsunami. I feel troubled, I feel scared, I want to help, I don’t know where to start. I worry about my older relatives as I don my mask to head out.
An employee at my new workplace says, “Oh, I would have never guessed you’re from India! You’re so Singaporean!” Well, I only learned to articulate here. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this – the shock in someone’s voice that I was born in India. But it still hurts. It hurts that despite looking as Dravidian as possible, nothing about my appearance or voice ties me to India.
And just like that, I’m an Indian transplant. Suddenly, my Singapore citizenship doesn’t matter. I’m no longer one of them. And I feel like I’m on the school bus again; like I’m on the outside looking in.
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