Dubai attracts a diverse range of multicultural people with various interests and skills, but not many know there is only one type of person who comes to the UAE.
He is the eternal expatriate who came to Dubai, “only for two years”, but found that time really flew fast.
“When I landed here (usually, the year when you were still a cell, an amoeba or whatever, in your mother’s tummy), there was nothing here,” says the eternal expatriate, pointing expansively to Burj Khalifa and Downtown Dubai, making you believe that he was somehow responsible for all the fascinating development.
“When did you come here?” he then asks you, and you are embarrassed to say that you have been here only for two decades. It gets even more embarrassing when you cannot remember even a single interesting thing you did during all these years, hoping to impress the old-timer. “I once drove from Al Karama to Naif Street in 15 minutes,” you finally tell him.
“I have seen things that will fill a book,” he says. “See, this is me and my wife when we first came here,” he says, holding a massive, ragged photo-album that you nowadays only see in historical, blockbuster movies.
“And see this donkey? That is how we used to get our daily water.” The donkey, he says, carried water in a leather bag on its back and the water seller ... and then he tells you about the First World problems he faced such as having no ice cubes to dunk into his warm drinking water during the summer.
“My wife and I took a small plane with propellers to Beirut whenever we felt we needed a cool drink,” he says, as his wife nods at his side, lifting her glass of cool lemonade in a salute to you. You smile back, but you mentally roll your eyes and think, “Whatever!”
For the long-term Indian expatriate, the most important thing is the curry powder that he could never find in the local market.
“Whenever I went home, my mother would pack a lunch box with potato paratha (a hand-made Indian bread), and tell me: “Beta (son), you look so thin. Please eat on time and if you need anything, please send a fax to your pitaji (dad) and we will try and send it through someone coming to Dubai’”.
The multi-millionaire takes you to the street where he first set up his spice and textile shop. “Everyone knew each other. We were like a family. I remember when I first took my new wife for a walk in the Gold Souq — her eyes opened wide, like diamonds,” he says.
So, what is it like to be an eternal expatriate? You get to enjoy a quality of life that you have grown to love over the years, despite your usual grumbling at social gatherings and expatriate parties over the rising cost of living.
“Let me tell you one thing. I feel very safe here. I can go out late at night without any fear,” says one woman from an Asian country.
“Adventurous lady”, I tell myself, because I do not venture out late. Most of my socialising is done virtually — on Facebook or on Twitter, right from home.
The eternal expatriate goes without enough sleep for days and crashes out over the weekend. His favourite haunt is the food court in a mall and as time goes by, he starts waddling about like a sleep-deprived zombie.
Though time has gone past fast, he can still never go home again. So, he starts to look out for a new home and that is how you have an exodus of middle-aged men arriving at Sydney or Toronto airports, eager to leave behind their wives and children and come back to Dubai, the place they really love.
