A forwarded mail... but i feel its true for every indian expat!
Most people I know here came to Gulf countries, the Promised Land, for maximumtwo-five years, or "to make enough money'" and go back home.
Countless Felafel and Shawerma sandwich years later, they are all still here, grayed quite a bit, but very much here. Gulf countries is like that. Onestarts off earnestly in a job, wants to work hard (and hopefully continuesto do so).
You share an apartment with some kind folks (who pass on Sambhar and Chutney to you on bad days, on the good they pass on some fried Zubaidi).You begin to get comfortable with the non-iron bedsheets and Jamaiyas ladenwith easy to serve yogurt and long life milk.
By then your status has risen back home because you work in this oil-rich, highest per capita income Wonderland. Ma beckons from home that they havefound a "nice, homely" girl for you. So you rent your own one bedroomapartment, put out few cheap "Banta" chairs, and blend in some Ikea "As Is" furniture just for it to not look so cheap.Few Friday market visits later,your house and heart are ready to receive the new bride.
If winter is here can spring be far behind? Stacks of Pampers (whateverwould young mothers do without them?) appear in the by now crowded home. Thepatter of tiny feet, Cartoon Network, pushchairs and colic occupy yourwaking and sleeping hours. The MBA you well intended is long forgotten with the stress of how to ask the boss for a raise, now that your child willstart playschool, and you can't cope with the instalments for your new placeback home. The raise never comes, or if it does it is too meager to write home about.
The luckier ones find fresh opportunities and move up the economic ladder,but never out of Gulf countries. You upgrade your car and home, and generally growto be a part of Gulf countries, or rather Gulf countries like a sandy desert spirit becomes ingrained into you, and fourth and fifth ring roads become your best weekendhangouts.
Just because it seems the in thing to do, you apply for migration to a western country, knowing full well in your heart that you may never be able to start a new life in another strange land. The taxation everywhere elsehurts. So do the residence fees here, but can you leave Gulf countries? The general view was that once the health insurance was levied, there would be an influx of expats fleeing Gulf countries. No one I know has left for those reasons.
Leave Gulf countries, and miss the Houmos and Mutabel and all the Vaasta you builtup, are you kidding? Life goes on, with bodies and souls flirting in and out of The Sultan Center, Souk Sharq, Caesar's Restaurants, Mugal Mahal all thenew new malls that have sprung up like mushrooms, and hey don't forget EdeeStores and Sanbouk!!
Soon one Thursday blends into another (another weekend, so quickly?) and next thing you know you are boarding a flight to the U.S. to drop your sonor daughter to University. Time has flown, and you and your friends ofyesteryears still meet occasionally, and discuss who has grayed more, and who's cholesterol is threatening.
The whole point of who "made more money" but never returned home is neverbrought up. Endless weekend dinners, get togethers, beach picnics, potlucksand problems, growing up pains, career ups and downs, friends who are like family, birthdays and anniversaries, visit visas and residences later.............Gulf countries are home.
