My Father - the Climate Migrant

I grew up in northeastern India in a family of seven members: maa, grandmother, 3 elder siblings and a cousin.

Then there was Baba – my father who lived in Dubai and whom I only saw once in every 2 years.

 In my child’s mind, he was a special guest: when Baba came home, each of us siblings got a new dress, my brother and my sister would also get something extra like a wristwatch or a pair of shoes. Baba stayed for about one and half month and during the entire time, we would eat fish almost at each meal, relatives would visit us, sometimes some neighbors would invite Baba for lunch or dinner and one of us would get to accompany him.

So, Baba would mean something special, something out of the box, but never one who we shared our daily lives with: I never went to a ‘mela ‘– village fairs that were very popular events, Baba never signed any of my school reports, never took me to Durga puja or bought me a balloon or a Jalebi; he never plucked a guava for me from the tree  or taught me cycling. Basically, Baba was someone who stayed on the cover of my book but never inside it. 

But when I was in grade 8, and I had just scored over 90 in a few subjects, I remember Baba telling me he was happy and proud. That year was also probably the very first time he told me a few stories, about Dubai (the Sheikhs there are so powerful they shut down all paan shops after someone spit paan juice on a Sheikh’s car), food (freshwater fish - the one Baba was used to- was very expensive and when he made fish curry , his colleagues would eat from Baba’s lunch box) and work (one of his Pakistani colleagues was so nice, Baba wanted to make him his son in-law).

For the next few years, these would be the things I would identify Baba with: he works in Dubai for a big company, he comes home in an airplane and he helps install central air conditioners – you know, the a/c system that cools down a huge building. It felt so good to tell these stories to my friends.

However, there was this one nagging question in my head: why does Baba have such rough, scaly hands with peeling skin?

Fast forward a few years and Baba had returned home for good, having quit his job. Oh, and he had no teeth. Not one. He was not even 60.

Fast forward to today. I am at the COP28, and I am sifting through reports, documents, and interviews with people on the conditions in which migrant workers work. I am learning that here most migrant workers are from poor, weather-ravaged regions of South Asian countries. 

 I am discovering that these workers are mostly unskilled and looking for jobs – any job. They pay a recruitment fee to get this job which they borrow from someone, and which then takes them a long time to pay back. I am also learning that their employers don’t pay them the whole wage and confiscate their passports, releasing it only once in two years or more.  And I am also learning that these workers work in terrible heat, without any shade or shield and get sunburns, dehydration, high blood pressure and other ailments.

And in my mind’s eye I now see Baba – an unskilled worker from the northeastern state frequently hit by earthquakes, hailstorms and flood, toiling in the terrible heat of Dubai. I see him living in a shared accommodation that was hot and  had no air conditioners (although he installed it in other buildings). I see him cooking his own meals, eating cheap food and trying to save from his meagre salary because back home, his wife was waiting for money to feed their four children and an old mother, also to repair the mud house with a thatched roof that was destructed every year from flood and storms.

 I also see my father waiting for two long years before getting back his passport, missing out on Durga puja, Diwali, Holi, New Year, Birthdays, and weddings.

In fact, when my eldest sister – Baba’s first-born child - got married, my father could not be there because he had to be at the job.

When my father returned home with no teeth and no savings, it was because his body was  malnourished and weakened from the poor diet and hard work and hadn’t earned enough to save. And yes, I now know the answer to my nagging question: Baba’s hands were rough, peeling because of the daily exposure to the terrible desert heat.

I always thought Baba as a stranger, as someone who did not belong to my life and my stories.

But today I realize, if anyone ever deserves to be in my story and in my life, its Baba because he sacrificed so much for us, for me and he was deprived of so much – his basic rights as a worker, access to healthcare, a good life in his final years and even a place in his own children’s lives.

N.B: I am reporting on the climate migrants and climate justice  from the COP.  Watch this space for those stories. 

#COP28 #ClimateJustice #climatemigration #climatedisaster #migration #displacement #Dubai #UAE