Friday, January 04, 2008

This island is not home, son.....

I know son, I have been there. You have this feeling because you grew up here. Same thing with me, my childhood was spent here and I always considered this home. But after spending a lifetime here, I realise that this is not home for me or for my kids, or for that matter any of the expatriate kids who grew up here. This is a very stratified society, where you will never be able to achieve your full potential or live with the human dignity which should be your birthright. As if that realisation was not enough, this has been confirmed by a high official of the U.A.E. .

As I said, i have spent all my life here and what do I have to show for it? I mean I have made good money but should that be the only factor to be considered? In retrospect, i think what I have gained here in monetary terms does not compensate for what I have lost in terms of my unrealized potential. I do not want my kids to look back in a few years time and realize the same thing. That is why I strongly advise all of you kids to get out of this part of the world as soon as possible and make your life in a country where you will not face the restraints that you face here and will be able to enjoy the freedoms and the dignity that you deserve.

On the other hand, if you continue to live here and spend your life here, you will find that sooner or later you will face a glass ceiling in your career. As if that were not enough, you will see undeserving locals advancing and being promoted ahead of you, on the basis of their nationality. Socially, you will move in your own circles segregated from other nationalities or the local culture, because there is no assimilating with the local culture as they have an even worse class system than we have in India . As I said earlier, this is a highly stratified society, worse than the caste system in India. You will find that as a Hindi, you will always remain at the lowest rungs of this society.

And in a few decades time, when you have kids of your own, you will find that as soon as they become adults, they will become unwelcome here unless you arrange labour visas for them. One day, as you are on the verge of stepping into old age, you will have to pack up your belongings and move to an unknown land to spend your remaining years, for this paradise is for worker bees only.

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1 comment:

Does it matter said...

Oh, but you have the same in India as well. Religion, caste, language can either hamper your growth or help you, depending on which side of the divide you are on.

but in the long run, you have lost. Because merit has lost in the society you live in.

So great that you did buy the plot of land - dont know where you bought it. Mumbai/ Ahmedabad/ elsewhere. :-)

But wherever it is, atleast you can fit into the cloak of relative anonymity - that your looking like the locals provides you.