Singapore’s migrant worker poets have been in the spotlight recently thanks in part to a story by the BBC about last November's migrant worker poetry contest at the National Library. We spoke to one of the organizers behind the poetry series and discovered that he, too, is a man of many talents: Assam-born Shivaji Das is a management consultant by day and and travel essayist working on his third book by night. Here, he tells us about his travels, his thoughts on migration and the spiritual state of Singapore.

I’ve been volunteering with TWC2 for the last five years. We run a soup kitchen for migrant workers who have injuries or salary disputes. Just upstairs is a place called Dibashram, where some workers come on Sundays to practice their poetry, music or theater.

In Bangladesh, poetry is the more cherished form of literature, unlike elsewhere, where fiction and non-fiction rule. Maybe this is why the workers like poetry, even though some of them have written short stories and novels. And it also happens that in Singapore as well, poetry is popular at this point.

I prefer the lighter writing that can still strike you. Some of the poets have that capability. The winning poet talked about his pocket that got wet when his wife leaned on his chest and cried, and how he always looks at this shirt everyday in Singapore.

It’s hard for us to think of migrant workers as sensitive fathers or sensitive husbands or brothers, or having a wider worldview—thinking about world peace, or the environment, or even small gestures like a bird sitting on a tree.

I would call them “migrant worker poets” but over time people have been calling them poets. That’s the aspiration of the workers as well, that they be known as poets in their own right.

Yes, there’s a patronizing element as well. But imagine a situation without this kind of event, where there is prejudice, which is even worse than being patronizing.

We’re not yet reaching out to the Filipino workers or the Myanmar workers, which is in the cards for next year’s iteration of the event.

I used to be quite a right-wing guy when I was in college. But once I started traveling and saw more facets of the world—hidden migrants on the streets, their conditions—I was exposed to certain realities which changed my worldview.

Writing enhances the experience of travel, embeds it more into my memory and gives me a deeper sense of purpose, when I go with the intention of meeting certain people.

But often I am in two minds: “Should I talk to this person? Should I make the first move?” I think I’ve missed out on a few good stories just because of that.

I’ve done many stories about China. There’s an old man who writes poems on the walls. He writes these love poems, and this old lady writes the response. But the two never want to declare themselves to each other, because they’re both old and they don’t want to go through the hassle of courtship.

I wouldn’t be able to read these poems because they’re written in Chinese. My wife helps me.

My wife is Singaporean, but she’s originally from northeast China. She’s my partner in crime—it’s become more of a common venture. She’s a lot blunter than my other critics.

Geylang has a very unusual density of Buddhist temples and monasteries. There’s a building that has six Buddhist monasteries. Each floor is a different sect.

A lot of the monks I talk to are not appreciative of this material hunt. But at the same time, their sustenance is through the red packets they receive for small services and house visits. Society has sort of outsourced their spirituality or purification to this group of people.

Language is a challenge they all face. The older Singaporean monks and nuns don’t speak good English, so they’re finding it difficult to reach out to the younger generation which finds either atheism or evangelical Christianity a lot more appealing.

I was a very late child. My dad was 45 years old when I was born. I always tell him that I would have been a lot more intelligent if I had been born at a younger age.

I was introverted. I liked to play on my own, read on my own. There were magazines that printed older National Geographic articles in Bengali. They made me interested in travelling more and learn about the world.

I don’t have a writing timetable but I do try to write at least one page a day, no matter how I hated it. On weekends, I try to push myself and write maybe three or four pages. I write whenever I get time, when I’m waiting for a flight, when I’m on the train to somewhere.

Human history as a whole can’t run away from migration. There’s a writer who has rightly said, “Life began from a single cell.” The history of life is a history of migration.

Migration in Singapore is a complicated and sensitive topic. There’s no denying that because of migration, the salaries of unskilled natives go down.

I wish to have a situation where the people who are not so privileged, who can’t afford to pay an agent, who don’t know where Singapore is but are suffering from lack of opportunities somewhere in Uganda or deep inside India—that they have some outlet to a better life.