When she was 10, Preeti Nair came home from primary school one day and found her mother covering up the unit number on their HDB flat with white paint. “I remember asking why she needed to do that and her telling me not to worry about it,” she reminisces.
Preeti and her family would end up moving house nine times over the course of her childhood. What she didn’t know then was the reason behind their relocations—the looming threat of loan sharks chasing up on gambling debts owed by her father.
“I had saved up some money from my job as a preschool teacher and stored it in a bank account for my kids to use when they were older, so they would have something to fall back on,” says Sellam Nair, Preeti’s mother. “It’s when we found that all the money had been drawn out that I realised how bad the situation was. We had to go live in my late father’s empty house for a period of time because we were pretty much homeless.”
I am deep in conversation with Sellam and Preeti, sitting in the breezy living room in the spacious home they share with Preeti’s brother. In front of me is a pot of sweet masala tea Sellam has just brewed, served alongside tiny pistachio and chocolate bites she baked in preparation for Deepavali. I fight the temptation to eat them by the fistfuls as I sip my tea, listening to the mother and daughter pair reflect on their memories. Maxi, their rescue mongrel, stretches out languidly at my feet.
As a child, Preeti had always wanted to go to university. In reality, once she graduated from polytechnic, she decided to get a job right away. From the moment she started working, Preeti began supporting her family. Unlike the privilege of having their own spending money that many young adults in Singapore enjoy, nearly all of Preeti’s income went into paying rent and household bills.
“I think that’s probably why, even today, I’m very hard on myself about building savings. I don’t think about what I can spend or splurge on. I’ve always known how to keep my expenditure to a minimum and be super frugal with things,” she says.
She continues: “One of the first few things people talk about when they make small talk is always, ‘Are you travelling anywhere?’ My answer has always been no. It’s not that I don’t think it’d be fun, it’s just not something I have learnt to prioritise.”
Better known by her moniker Preetipls, Preeti is one of Singapore’s most prominent and prolific content creators. She first found success through satirical comedy videos on social media, and today makes a versatile slate of content across lifestyle, fashion and beauty while advocating for social change and the causes she believes in. What she’s most loved for, of course, is her unimpeachable authenticity.
Despite her success, Preeti seems to visibly struggle when it comes to doing anything even remotely self-indulgent. “I feel very guilty although no one actually guilts me. But I’m conditioned to think about the work opportunities I will miss and the people around me to whom I can’t extend the same luxuries.”
Sellam and Preeti trade easy banter that hint at a deeper friendship beyond a typical parent-child relationship. “She’s always gotten me the way a friend might,” Preeti confirms. “I have confided my problems in her since I was a teen. I’d tell her about any friendship problems I might be having and we’ve always been so similar that she would just understand me. Whenever we did disagree, we were able to talk it out and explain our points of view to each other.’
Her tone turns tender. “My mum has sacrificed an incredible amount for us. No matter what she was going through with my dad, her kids have always been first priority. She could have had a career and a life outside the difficult family life she was faced with. But she chose us instead.”
“She has always gotten me the way a friend might. I’d tell her about any friendship problems I might be having and we’ve always been so similar that she would just understand me.”
In 2018, Preeti and her family got an unexpected phone call about her father. By this point, he had been absent from their lives for years and, to their knowledge, living in India. On the phone with a stranger, they found out that her father had attempted suicide in India.
“It was one of the worst moments of our lives,” Preeti recalls. “My mum and I flew overnight to where he was. She was distraught and barely functioning, and I can’t speak Tamil to save my life. It was an incredibly stressful situation.”
When they arrived at her father’s home, he waved them away. “He said, ‘Why are you guys here? I don’t need you’.”
Before they knew what was happening, loan sharks were barging into her father’s home, looking to collect on gambling debts. The women recall hiding in a wardrobe and under a bed, hearts pounding in their chests.
“We had seen enough movies to know that if gangsters were looking for you because you owed them money, it wouldn’t be wise to let them know that you had a wife and daughter in your life. We held our breaths, straining our ears to hear if they left. It was incredibly traumatic,” Preeti says.
“She could have had a career and a life outside the difficult family life she was faced with. But she chose us instead.”
Unable to bear leaving him alone in that state, Preeti and her family brought her father home to Singapore that same year. He moved into their rented flat at the time, which she describes as a tough thing to have to process. “Since he was meant to be staying home all day, we decided to adopt Maxi because we knew he would want a companion. True enough, he did fall in love with her.”
It wasn’t long, however, before her father’s gambling addiction had him in its grip again. They soon discovered that he was back to his old ways, hiding messages on secret phones, striking up illicit deals behind their backs and even leveraging Preeti’s then public identity for his business.
Eventually, he moved out to live on his own in an apartment that Preeti and her family had paid for. He passed away a year later, having taken his own life.
“It was a very painful thing,” Sellam says pensively. “My life was over. I thought to myself, there were so many things in life he didn’t let me enjoy. But if I was being honest, he was still there in the corner of my heart.”
We sit in the heavy silence of their memories. Sellam gazes out of the window, her eyes slightly shiny. A few minutes pass and Preeti pipes up.
“You cannot say your life is over,” she says earnestly to her mother before turning to me. “In the last five years alone, my mum has done so many things for herself. It feels like she has aged backwards. We are very proud of her. She got a gym membership at 68, for god’s sake!”
The tension breaks into laughter instantly. As Sellam lightly smacks Preeti’s arm while the latter continues to regale me with stories of her mum’s social roster—Sellam has weekly bingo nights, for one—I realise the depth of unconditional love that exists between them.
“In the last five years alone, my mum has done so many things for herself. It feels like she has aged backwards.”
After years of financial instability and emotional turmoil, their family is now laying down roots in an apartment that they proudly own. At the time that they bought the house, it was Preeti who laid down the biggest investment. Having little option of grants or concessions from HDB, they had to take out a bank loan.
“It was the biggest financial decision I have made in my life and it caused me a lot of anxiety because owning a home in Singapore feels like an impossible dream,” Preeti says. “But it’s the best thing that could have happened.”
The house, which coincidentally shares the same layout as their old home which they lost due to her father’s debts, is a fresh page for them to make new memories and live out the peaceful family life they never had.
“It’s the smallest things that make me happy now,” Preeti says, her cheeks dimpling. “My mum will come into my room sometimes and ask, ‘Are you very busy? Do you have time for a little something?’ And then she’ll give me a snack that she made. It makes my day. It’s the thoughtfulness she has to do these cute little acts of service.”
Sellam smiles serenely, before sharing a quiet anecdote of her own. “I learnt recently that Preeti doesn’t like waking up to an empty house. She told me this randomly, ‘Mama, when I wake up and nobody is home, I feel so uncomfortable.’ I didn’t know she feels this way and I don’t understand why.”
She pauses, then continues: “I don’t need to understand why. No matter what errands I have to run, I don’t leave the house anymore until I have had the chance to say good morning to her.”
Photography Sayher Heffernan
Styling Nicholas See
Hair Yuhi Kim using Woorailoora and DunGüd
Make-up Kat Zhang/The Suburbs Studio using Nars Cosmetics
Stylist’s assistant Lance Acron Pielago
Make-up assistant Sophia Soh/The Suburbs Studio
Production assistants Jesslyn Lye and Renée Chong
Vogue Singapore’s November ‘Nurture’ issue is now out on newsstands and available online.
