After 21 years of being raised and educated in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), I moved back to India (sans my parents) to start a new life. I was always unsure whether I had taken the right step, and after watching the film Airlift , I knew that it was the best decision of my life.
Airlift is a recent Bollywood release starring Akshay Kumar and Nimrat Kaur. It is based on the the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait in 1990, just before the invasion by Iraq. There’s only one emotion that the film evoked: it disturbed me. The Indians in the film, prior to being faced with the consequences of the invasion, shun their ancestry. They consider themselves Kuwaiti, only to run to the Indian embassy when the situation becomes severe and they need a quick escape.
Don’t get me wrong though. I thoroughly enjoyed the film as a moviegoer. The sequences were gripping, meticulous details in direction get 1990 right and make for an authentic setting; and as my mother put it so eloquently — this film is how we figured out that Akshay Kumar could ‘act’.
A state of confusion
I remain confused as to whether my status as a non-resident Indian (NRI) is former or current. This is something I haven’t been able to answer for as long as I can remember. While I live and work in India, my parents still reside in the UAE, and I re-enter the country every six months to maintain a resident’s visa.
The standard assumption about NRIs is that they are citizens of the nation they were raised in. But that’s not correct.
I was born in India, and no matter how many years I spend in the UAE, I will never become a citizen of the country. This is because neither of my parents are Arabs by descent. My residency visa is valid only for as long as my father works in the nation as women receive UAE residency visas if their husband/father has an employment visa. Once my father decides to leave the country permanently, my visa is effectively terminated.
Who am I, really?
This is where the confusion stems from. I grew up in a limbo. I was never truly Indian, but never completely Arab. My visits to India were sporadic, and somewhere down the line my ‘Indian-ness’ was beginning to fade away. Part of my decision to move back home was to revive the Indian in me. Fortunately, I have lived here long enough that I am now in touch with my roots.
Watching Airlift disturbed me because I fear that the NRIs I know in Dubai have shed their Indian roots in favour of an identity that has no real affirmation of citizenship and origin. While the country may give them every happiness and luxury known to man, what happens on the day they have to move back home?