Dilemma of an Indian Expat in the Middle East

I often try and pull myself away from the minutiae of my daily life to look at the bigger picture. However, being a creature of habit and routine and with my days filled with quotidian rhythms this does not happen too often.

 

But when it does, I try and figure out what and where I want my life to be a few years down the road. It goes without saying that the view is murky in the extreme, but what is more frightening is the fact that caught where I am on the crossroads of two worlds, it is extremely difficult to even know what "to" want. Let me re-emphasize the word "to". I deliberately did not say what "I" want! The winds of change are blowing hard across the Globe, and I think that they will be reaching gale force soon. We are like flotsam caught in the inexorable push and pull of huge tidal forces.

 

Based here in the Middle East, it feels (to me) like the center of the world - not in the sense of any pre-eminence, just that it is perfectly situated between the West and the East. I delude myself into thinking that it provides me with a unique perspective. Positioned between the Developed and the Under-Developed Geographies, between the Ageing and the Younger Populations, between the Mature and the Frontier Economies. But also on the fault line between the Clean and the Polluted, between the Sparsely-populated and the Over-populated, between the Sophisticated and the Rough, and between the First World Welfare States and the Third World Developing Countries.

 

My head starts to swim with questions that seem to pop up out of nowhere and everywhere.

So where should we go from here? I feel like we are caught between a rock and a hard place or more pertinently (like) people scared of heights stuck midway up a steep slope, wherein one can neither go ahead nor climb down.

Should I encourage my children to look West, and forever sever any ties they have to their identities and their homeland?

Or would it be better to mentally prepare them to look only East, knowing in my heart that a growing economy is no guarantee of a better quality and standard of living?

 

On the one hand

As the world's economic might shifts to the Third World, a lot of the Immigrants to the West, will start facing the heat, as jobs and money gets tighter. Those Governments will have no choice but to protect the rights and the jobs of the "native" populations. Even if not overtly stated, the undercurrents of racism and discrimination will make life a bit less idyllic, as the economic climate cools.

Will countries like Canada and Australia which today seem welcoming, feel the same to an immigrant a few years hence?

Will the specter of racism ever diminish, or will it only be exacerbated by the collapsing paradigm of Western Economic might and infinite growth?

How long can and will the West keep printing money to keep their people happy, before their economies implode, with all the consequences that follow?

Even if their wealth is welcomed, will the people themselves from China and the Sub-continent, who might act and look boorish and unrefined, be welcome?

And will it not be worse for their children, who get assimilated into their borrowed homeland and lose their native identity, when they come face to face with the consequences of deep rooted prejudices?

For how long will the ingrained disdain of the East be masked by the West's desperation to survive?

 

On the other hand

Can we go back to the conditions that we came from and our children have never seen?

Will we be able to adapt to a culture and philosophy that is circular rather than linear?

How can one adapt to a place where nothing works as it should, and even if we can adapt, will we be happy?

Are we looking back to our homeland because we do not want to get out of our comfort zone, or will the reality of the familiar actually embrace and shelter us?

Can we be content in a place that cannot provide its people basic amenities, and every day is a battle for survival?

 

Positioned here on the Lagrange point of two opposing civilizations and cultures, one looks both ways to find answers. In this place which professes to be the melting pot of more than a hundred and fifty Nationalities and many diverse cultures, it becomes evident that if one strips away the superficiality of forced inclusiveness, the words West is West and East is East, and never the Twain shall meet, rings quite true.

 

So many questions and I have not thought the half of them. And an infinite range of answers to each! It makes my head swim! But the incessant drumbeat of Time is only accelerating, as my son now stands positioned to leave the roost. As he strains on the leash to be let go, the urgency of seeking answers gets strident.

 

Then I hear, in my mind, my In-Laws oft repeated refrain, that I think too much. I try and control too much of what cannot be controlled. Life will take care of itself, and in the process answer most of these questions.

 

The question 'then' is - will the answers be palatable?