Meet the filmmaker and poet shedding light on migrant worker issues in Singapore

I write the poems in Tamil and my local friend, Ashwini Selvaraj, who is a student, helps me to translate the poems. The first poem I submitted for the Migrant Worker Poetry Competition was Punishment to God. It's about the scarcity of food in India. In 2017, I wrote about the life of a prostitute and in 2018, I submitted a poem about abortion. Those two are my favourites because the themes are close to my heart. I always place myself in the shoes of others – that's why the last line of my poem on prostitution is "Yes, I am a prostitute". I really feel for them.

I went for a meeting with my Bangladeshi friend Zakir Hossain Khokan where we pitched a film about the scarcity of water in India. But that was hard to shoot in Singapore so I revised the script and wrote $alary Day instead. We managed to partner up with Ho Say Peng, who helped film and edit the clips. I approached Say Peng to help because we'd met before at literary events where he would take portraits of migrant workers. I was also unsure of Singapore's rules and wasn't sure if talking about the salary issue might be a problem – so it was important for me to get a local perspective before we started on the shoot. Say Peng reassured me that there wouldn't be a problem because we're presenting the truth.

I'm an S Pass holder and I earn more than a Work Permit holder, but when I first came to Singapore, I had to send all my money home to help fix our roof. I had about $50 to $100 left in my pocket for monthly expenses excluding food. This is similar to what low-wage workers in Singapore go through. Most of them don't go anywhere except for Little India and East Coast Park because everything is so expensive. I wanted to highlight these issues in my film.

We shot the film over two Sundays, our day off, but the editing too more time – about seven to eight months. We initially planned to release it only to the migrant worker community but after the screening at City Square, some reviewers wrote about the film on their websites and that garnered more interest in the film. We also screened it at The Projector together with I Dream of Singapore and at the ArtScience Museum. It was important to me that we donated the money we made from those screenings to those in need so we made a contribution to HOME and TWC2. I want to base my next short film on the life of a sex worker so I made a donation to ProjectX too.

Because of the ongoing Covid situation, I think it's more important for Singaporeans to watch the film. There are a lot of misconceptions about migrant workers and some people also blame them for the spread of the virus. There are people who make fake accounts to leave malicious comments on Facebook too. But there have also been a lot of locals who support migrant workers by volunteering to distribute snacks. We need ways like this to come together and foster better understanding and relationships. If we need platforms to show our talent and encourage engagement with migrant workers.