From The Straits Times    |
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The Onlookers

Would you quit your job and move to another country for a boyfriend of four months? Or brave the frigid Arctic Circle with someone you met online? Three Singapore women who have taken such extraordinary leaps of faith share how they went the extra mile to make their romantic relationships thrive. Here’s part three of our three-part Valentine’s Day series.

They met on the set of a Bollywood movie, not expecting that their own love story would rival that of a blockbuster. Meet Maggie Chan and Bidyut Dumra, both in their 40s, who refused to let this little thing called distance keep them apart.

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While working together on a Bollywood project in Melbourne, Bidyut became smitten with Maggie. Photo provided by Maggie Chan

Chatting with Bidyut and Maggie Dumra is like watching an unrehearsed stand-up comedy. Bidyut is the jokester, one who cannot help making a wisecrack every now and then, while Maggie has a more practical air about her. Yet, their easy-going chemistry belies a relationship that has weathered challenging seasons of being apart.

The couple met in 2004 while he was auditioning for a Bollywood film role in Melbourne, but it wasn’t until 2006 that the pair started dating. Bidyut, who was born in India, had just finished his university studies and was starting his first consulting business.

He says, chuckling: “As a true Indian boy, I’d wanted to be a Bollywood actor at some point, so when I saw an ad for a Bollywood movie, I went to audition for it.”

Maggie, who is Singaporean, had relocated to Melbourne for work. The production company that hired her had a distribution arm that produces Bollywood films, and she was put in charge of casting for the movie that Bidyut auditioned for.

Thanks to a previous experience in television production, Bidyut ended up not only getting a role in the movie, but also a position in the production team together with Maggie. Bidyut was attracted to Maggie’s vivacious and can-do personality; she liked his sense of humour. But it was not meant to be – yet.

She shares: “I was in a relationship then, and he (Bidyut) was this dude who was always on a motorbike with girls running after him. I was not interested.”

The three-month project took such a mental toll on Maggie that she decided to return to Singapore for a break. Bidyut missed her so much that he flew to Singapore to look for her. Thinking it would be romantic
to bump into her “accidentally”, he went to all the places she had mentioned in their conversations, such as Zouk and the hawker centres that she frequented.

“It would be destiny and I’d just find her,” he says. When that failed, he e-mailed her asking for a mailing address on the pretext of sending a parcel, then turned up at her home where she was living with her parents.

Maggie says: “Imagine how shocked I was when I opened the door, pimple cream on my face, rollers in my hair, and found him standing there. I asked, ‘What are you doing here?!’”

“Yup, I crash landed at her door!” he guffaws.

He asked if they could go steady, but Maggie was still hesitant, even though her previous relationship had ended.

“We were living in different countries – I was in Singapore, and Bidyut in Melbourne. He had no intention of moving here, and I didn’t know what my plans were. I had done long-distance relationships before and they never worked out for various reasons,” she says.

Bidyut returned to Melbourne, disappointed. He describes the days that followed like a soppy movie scene, with Maggie chortling beside him at every word: “I was crying in grief and despair – cue the slow music – everywhere I went reminded me of her. I often went through a montage of flashbacks of when we were together.”

The couple stayed in touch through the occasional e-mail. Then, Bidyut received an opportunity to expand his consultancy practice to Hong Kong, and he moved there in 2006. As fate would have it, six months after he relocated to the city, Maggie was offered a position in Hong Kong with an advertising agency.

“I was thinking if I knew anyone who was living there, and his name immediately came to mind. So I reached out to him,” she says.

Bidyut jumped at the chance to reconnect with Maggie. He suggested that she stay in his apartment for a month as she settled in, and that he would help her find her own place.

“The moment I entered his apartment, he locked the doors,” says Maggie, bursting into laughter.

“I offered a month’s stay rent-free, but she’s never had to pay rent ever since!” quips Bidyut.

Maggie adds: “That was also when I was thinking, we’re living in the same country now and we’re both single. I’ve always liked him, so let’s try this out.”

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The couple’s wedding shoot in Melbourne. Photo provided by Maggie Chan

Keeping the faith

After four years of living together in Hong Kong, they bought and renovated an apartment with plans to settle there after marriage – although there had not yet been a proposal.

“Then the whole long-distance nightmare came true,” says Bidyut. Maggie’s company relocated her team back to Singapore. Bidyut, meanwhile, had to stay in Hong Kong because of his business commitments. By then, the couple had a solid trust and confidence in each other. Despite having their own social lives, they often kept each other updated on their whereabouts through video calls, and would meet up either in Singapore or on one of their business trips abroad.

Maggie shares: “We knew where our relationship was headed, although I did wonder when he would propose, since we had been together for nearly five years.”

Unknown to her, Bidyut was already planning one during an upcoming trip to the United States to meet his extended family. Unfortunately, he lost the ring and had to let the cat out of the bag. “I told him, maybe it was God’s way of saying that the ring wasn’t big enough,” she jokes.

Unfazed, Bidyut decided to surprise her with an even more memorable proposal. From Hong Kong, he rustled up an elaborate ruse – studios and teleprompters included – that had Maggie responding to a fictional closed-door audition for a fashion series, with close friends and family watching from another room.

Cleverly slipped in between her lines were a few sentences about weddings and proposals, and as she read “today is my turn”, Bidyut entered the room, got down on one knee and proposed.

“At first, I was disappointed that it was all fake because I was so excited about the job,” she says, laughing at the memory. “But it was all very sweet.”

Maggie and Bidyut married in 2011, after living apart in different countries for two years. Photo provided by Maggie Chan.

The couple were married in 2011. They settled first in Melbourne, and then in Hong Kong. A year after their elder daughter Scarlett was born, Maggie’s mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Without hesitation, they decided that Maggie would return to Singapore with Scarlett. Unfortunately, Bidyut had just started a new job with an airline, so he had to remain in Hong Kong.

But he ensured that Maggie had everything she needed to focus on caring for her mother. She recalls: “He got us a rental property that was in a central location and near the hospital and our child’s school. He made sure that we were comfortable in Singapore so I could look after my mum. I didn’t have to work, and I could focus on getting my mum to her medical treatments.”

Bidyut moved to an apartment near Hong Kong’s airport so he could fly to Singapore every Friday evening, spend the weekend with his family, and then catch the last flight back to Hong Kong on Sunday evenings. “I know that family means a lot to Maggie, so the sacrifices were worth it,” he says.

When her mother passed on, the family were reunited in Hong Kong. A year later, however, Maggie’s father became terminally ill. This time, the couple decided to move back to Singapore as a family so Maggie could be by her father’s side.

It’s been six years since, and their second daughter, River, was born here in 2018. Bidyut now works as the group head of innovation at DBS bank, while Maggie is a freelance executive producer, as well as the designer and owner of socially conscious fashion label Baebeeboo.

Going through several upheavals over 18 years has made the couple and their family closer than ever. Photo provided by Maggie Chan.

It takes two

The couple has weathered six relocations across three countries, including moving apartments 13 times. Dealing with life’s unpredictable curveballs together has only strengthened their resolve to “not be swayed by the little things in life”.

Maggie admits that she can be the feisty one in the relationship, while Bidyut acknowledges that he has learnt to be more tactful and sensitive. Their worst quarrel was during a stressful period in Hong Kong after marriage. “We had to discuss our finances, but didn’t agree on some matters. We had an argument and I ran out of the house in tears as I needed time alone, and didn’t return home till late. But that’s as bad as it gets,” Maggie reveals.

Bidyut says: “I’m more of a dreamer and talker, while she’s a realist and a doer. I can think of 10,000 ideas and solutions to situations that seem impossible to Maggie. But for an idea to happen, she’s the one who makes sure it does. And that has worked really well for us as a couple and a family.”

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