I met Nisha on my last night in Singapore. She
is 7 years old and her father tells me her favourite thing to do is talk. I
realised this when I sat down and she asked me if I would like to borrow her umbrella,
where I was from and what I would like to order. Nisha sat down at the table with me and
screamed my order to the kitchen.
Nisha like most people in Singapore has a migrant story. Her
father came from South India nearly twenty years ago in search of work, so he
could save to have a family and give them a better life than he could in India.
I shocked Nisha by started to speak to her with the basic
Tamil words that I know. She looked at me, and looked at me again. “Tamil
terima?” I repeated it, “Do you speak Tamil?” She dropped her umbrella and asked me if I was
Tamil. I replied, no, but in Tamil. And she screamed and laughed and told me
she had never met a white Tamil person before.
She noticed my bra from under my sleeve and raised her eyes.
I asked her if she had one too. Putting her hands on her chest and rolling her
eyes, she exclaimed “No, I am just a baby!”
Meeting people like Nisha is what makes me travel. It is
hard to explain, but for me it is just the simple interactions and
conversations that I love the most. I left her father’s restaurant full of
greasy paratha and feeling lighter and happier,
and slightly sad about leaving Singapore.
I will be adding more stories, particularly a behind the
scenes interview with Rough Guide author Richard Lim.
