Growing up in a kampung in Potong Pasir as the third of six children, Anil David, now 52, spent his early years going from house to house with his cousins stealing rambutans from their neighbours.
With little supervision from his parents – his father worked long hours and his mother was busy with the family’s needs – he rarely suffered any consequences for his mischief.
As a teenager, he began noticing how his friends wore branded clothes, had the coolest stationery and ate at fancy restaurants.
Anil (right) with his siblings in their younger days. Photos courtesy of Anil David unless otherwise stated.
It gnawed at his self-esteem and he developed a habit of stealing money from his father to keep up the lifestyle he craved.
It took a while for his father to notice that his money was disappearing. But Anil never owned up, nor was he ever caught or disciplined.
It emboldened him.
Web of lies
Anil often lied, too.
It started out as a way for him to cope with his pain. When he was 8, he was molested by a trusted uncle over the course of a year.
Unable to process his tangled emotions of hurt, guilt and shame, young Anil lied to himself by trying to forget each episode. Somehow, it offered him comfort.
Anil paid a stranger $10 to pose as his father.
Hooked by the ease in which it got him out of sticky situations, he began lying more frequently.
Once, when the school principal asked to see his parents about his bad behaviour, Anil paid a stranger $10 to pose as his father.
On another occasion, he brought home a fake trophy he had bought at Queensway – complete with his name inscribed on it. He told his mother he had won it on Sports Day.
He would sometimes lie for the sake of lying.
Blackened heart
By the time he started work as an insurance agent, he had no qualms about swiping thousands from his client. In eight months, he had taken $100,000.
When he was just 27, he was caught and jailed for five years. His daughter Anishah was barely a year old.
It was a quick and easy way to fund his extravagant lifestyle – fancy cars, branded goods, gifts for his girlfriends.
At night when he returned home to his wife, who thought he had been working late, Anil had no problems sleeping soundly.
In 1995, when he was just 27, he was caught and jailed for five years. His daughter Anishah was barely a year old. His conviction shook him a little.
Anil (centre) in his younger days with his wife’s parents in India.
In 2000, he was convicted again for a criminal breach of trust and sent back to jail for 16 months.
He committed his third crime in 2004, when he colluded with his girlfriend to embezzle almost $800,000.
Shame and regret
His third sentence, slapped on him when he was 36, was his longest yet.
His selfish pursuits had done nothing but cost his family a son, a husband, a father.
The mere thought of spending eight years in a maximum-security prison was unbearable.
His cell reeked of sweat and metal. The humid air clung to his skin. Hemmed in by concrete walls and steel bars, he had no escape from the reminder of his undoing.
He had not paid much heed to his family for years, but he found his thoughts often wandering to them.
A month had passed, but his wife and two young daughters had not come to visit. He did not blame them.
He spent weeks contemplating if it was better for him to die.
It dawned on him that his selfish pursuits had done nothing but cost his family a son, a husband, a father. And now they had to bear his shame.
He knew the person he had hurt the most was his wife, Gita. She had left her family in India to build a life with him in Singapore. He had broken all the promises he had made to her.
Anil’s wife, Gita. He knew he had caused much pain in the years he was in prison.
He also grieved for the time he was losing with his daughters, who were just two and nine. He wondered about what life would have been like had he made better choices.
Shame and regret sat heavy on his chest like a brick. He spent weeks contemplating if it was better for him to die.
“The book was reading me”
Time was the only thing Anil had in abundance. So, when a fellow inmate offered him a small, blue Bible, he found no reason to decline.
His vague impression of Jesus from his time in St Andrew’s Secondary School was of “a miracle-maker, some kind of David Copperfield”.
His vague impression of Jesus was of “a miracle-maker, some kind of David Copperfield”.
But as he read through the book of Matthew, he was struck by how Jesus was able to see right through every person He met.
“Suddenly I felt so naked, like this book was reading me. I felt that Jesus could see right through me too – all my deceit, that I was just a phoney,” Anil said.
Until that point, Anil had spun such a complex web of lies that nobody – not even his wife – knew who he truly was.
He threw the Bible aside, afraid to embrace the bareness he felt.
But after some time, boredom crept in. Anil picked up the book from the floor. This time, Matthew 11:28 caught his attention.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
It was exactly how he was feeling – weary and burdened. He was tired of being the person he was. Tired of carrying around guilt. Tired of knowing he had lost everything.
“Suddenly I felt so naked, like (the Bible) was reading me.”
Suddenly he was reminded of a chat he had had with a pastor a decade earlier.
Anil had intended to sell him insurance, but they ended up spending an hour-and-a-half talking about the Christian faith.
“He was rattling on about Jesus. I thought: ‘Wow, this is really long.’
“But there was one thing that I remembered him saying, ‘Christianity is a relationship you have with a person’,” Anil recalled.
Anil had destroyed all his relationships. So, a relationship with God – and some respite from his burdens – seemed like a good offer.
However, not knowing how to have a relationship with someone he could not see, he left the thought at the back of his mind.
Finding rest
More than a year later, a fellow inmate invited Anil to attend the Sunday Christian counselling session.
“He said there was aircon, during Christmas got chocolate, and sometimes pretty girls will come. So I went,” said Anil with a laugh.
That night he slept well, something that he had struggled to do for a long time.
During the sermon, to his shock, the pastor shared the exact verse that he had been gripped by a year earlier: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Anil froze. “This is no coincidence,” he thought. “God is speaking to me.”
Desperate for this rest that had long eluded him, he stepped forward to give his life to Jesus.
“I remember that as I was praying, there were tears flowing in my heart. I suddenly felt so tired. Drained. I didn’t feel free,” he recalled.
But that night he slept well, something that he had struggled to do for a long time. And when he awoke in the morning, the brick sitting on his chest was gone.
“Suddenly, I didn’t feel alone,” Anil said.
Though his problems and worries were still very much present, his heavy burden was gone. It was replaced by a courage to face up to what he had done.
“Suddenly, I didn’t feel alone.”
“That was the start of a very, very painful peeling off of my skin, as I began my journey of knowing Christ,” he said.
It was a challenging process of unlearning his old value system and replacing it with the one given by God – of honesty, contentment and trust in Him.
A new identity
Anil spent the next few years poring over the Bible, reading it from cover to cover five times.
In it, he found forgiveness and redemption.
“God doesn’t look at the wrongs I’ve done. He has forgiven me and given me a new identity.”
“I looked at Peter, a cowardly person who betrayed Jesus. But yet Jesus said: No, you’re going to be the man of the hour for Me.
“And David committed sins in his life, but God still called him a man after His own heart.
“I put all these pieces together and saw that God doesn’t look at the wrongs I’ve done. He has forgiven me and given me a new identity,” said Anil.
As Anil read the Old Testament, he also discovered the significance of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and why He made it willingly – “because I’m important to Him, and He doesn’t want to see any of His children straying away”.
The unconditional love showed to him by the counsellors at Prison Fellowship Singapore, who turned up every week to spend time with him, also moved him greatly.
“Under his shelter, I will always find rest.”
They met every Saturday for two hours, and Anil could share every shameful thing he had done without receiving judgement.
“They helped me to overcome many things. I could share all the extramarital affairs that I’d had and they would guide me with the word of God,” said Anil.
They challenged him to put God’s word to memory. By the time he left prison, he had 300 verses etched in his mind.
Anil still hangs on the Bible he had in prison. Its tattered and obviously well-read pages are filled with long, handwritten prayers, reminders to stay faithful, highlighted verses and detailed notes. Photo by Gracia Lee.
But his change did not happen overnight. Occasionally, Anil would still get involved in fights in prison and cause trouble.
“But there was one thing I held onto and did not let go of – this person, Jesus, that I was beginning to have a relationship with,” he said.
Rebuilding relationships
Anil’s priority was to make amends with his family.
So, inspired by Paul who wrote letters in the Bible, he wrote to his family twice a month. He apologised to them and came clean about everything he had ever done.
“I am truly sorry for the pain I have caused you.”
Even when they did not reply, he continued to write.
To his elder daughter, Anishah, he wrote: “Little princess of mine, I made a mistake and I am paying so heavily for it. What saddens me most is that my mistakes are affecting you as well!
“I know it is hard for you to grow up without a father figure to guide you. I am truly sorry for the pain I have caused you. I promise you to change and be a better man and the best daddy in the whole wide world.”
As a result of his jail terms, Anil missed out on the growing years of his daughters, Anishah (in red) and Sushma, who are now 25 and 18.
He looked forward to the day when his family would come to visit, wishing that he could just reach out and hug them.
“I had to rebuild everything from behind the glass,” said Anil.
Renewed purpose
In prison, Anil was also rebuilding his own life. At the encouragement of a prison officer, he applied to work in a call centre run by inmates.
It was here that the Lord sent him mentors and friends who saw value in what he had to offer and affirmed his abilities – something he had not experienced while growing up.
Anil now has a stronger relationship with his wife, Gita (left), and daughters Sushma (second from left) and Anishah.
His years at the call centre allowed him to put into practice the new values he had learnt – discipline, honesty and hard work.
God sent his way friends and former mentors who believed in his transformation and invested in his dream.
And, as he took pride in the work that he was entrusted with, he gained a sense of accomplishment and purpose.
It invigorated him so much that he decided he would one day start his own social enterprise and call centre. He would hire ex-convicts like himself, as well as other groups on the fringes of society.
It was a dream that seemed impossible. At age 41 when he was released, he was an undischarged bankrupt with only a secondary school education.
But God sent his way friends and former mentors who believed in his transformation and invested in his dream.
“He also went (to jail) and he’s doing well. That touches me. If he can do it, I also can do.”
His wife, too, shared his vision and gave him her full support, even pawning all the family jewellery to raise the funds.
In 2012, the couple set up Agape Connecting People, with the hope of providing a “Garden of Eden” for employees to flourish and gain confidence.
They built it on values like integrity, excellence, respect and accountability.
Today Agape has about 150 employees, who are ex-convicts, people with disabilities and single mothers. It has two offices – one in Tai Seng Avenue and another in the women’s prison in Changi.
Anil (left) with CEO of Agape Connecting People, Joseph See (middle) at their office in Tai Seng Avenue.
For many of Anil’s employees – whom he prefers to call colleagues – his success is an emblem of hope.
Ramesh Singh, 50, an ex-offender who has been an operations executive at Agape for six years, said: “Now where is he? He also went in (to jail) and came out, and he’s doing well. That touches me. If he can do it, I also can do.”
Ramesh (left) with Anil, whom he sees as an emblem of the hope that change is possible. Photo by Gracia Lee.
In all he does, Anil remembers Psalm 91:1: He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
He said: “The moment I move out of that umbrella, I’m asking for trouble. But under his shelter, I will always find rest.”
Rising to the need
Anil still wonders who it was that nominated him for the President’s Volunteerism and Philanthropy Award, which he received at the Istana on October 16.
It commends him for stepping up in more ways than one during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I never did it for recognition. I only rose to the need,” he said humbly. He honours his wife, Gita, as “the true recipient” of the award.
“I want to be the hope for them, to show that there is a way out of whatever situation they are in.”
When Agape Connecting People, the call centre he founded, was offered the opportunity to set up and man the National Care Hotline, his team mobilised, trained and readied their staff in just 10 days.
The hotline is a government-initiative that offers psychological and emotional support to those affected by the Covid pandemic.
To care for his staff as they went to work each day as essential workers, Anil teamed up with charity Octava Foundation to provide them with three meals a day.
Additionally, he and his wife also rallied and mobilised their family, friends and staff to provide 300,000 meals for foreign workers over two months, as well as support 180 stranded students from India.
A life, changed
This award is just the latest addition to the many accolades Anil and his social enterprise have received.
But behind all these prizes is a greater story of how a man, once destroyed by his own greed and thrown into prison thrice for stealing more than a million dollars, was transformed in prison.
While being so open about his dishonest past may affect his credibility, Anil does not sanitise his story.
“It is impossible to achieve this on your own. It’s only by God’s hands of grace.”
“There are so many people just like me,” he said.
“I want them to know that with God, all things are possible. I want to be the hope for them, to show that there is a way out of whatever situation they are in.
“If God is able to take someone as dirty, as vile as me and put me where I am today, it is a testimony that God is able to do far greater than we can ever imagine, if we are aligned with him.
“It is impossible to achieve this on your own. It’s only by God’s hands of grace.”
You can purchase Anil David’s book about his life, The Longest Shortcut (Landmark Books), here and here, as well as Popular and Times the Bookstore.
A version of this story was first published in Salt&Light.
