On returning home after spending nine years in Abu Dhabi, 19 August 1990.





Expatriates are a hybrid breed,


born out of national wedlock, the seed


of two societies coupling, the need


of one satisfied by the other’s greed.


Mixed lineage confused loyalties spawn.


To which community does an expatriate belong?


Does he embrace his country, right or wrong,


Or abjure it for however long


He thinks it takes to sprout new shoots,


Without having to transplant old roots.





His years of exile are time-served


as punishment he never deserved


For crimes he never committed.


His guilt lay in being ill-fitted


To cope with the hardships of life at home.


Water, electricity, telephone, every amenity


Seems to function abroad automatically.


No wonder every expatriate elects


To vote with his feet and selects


A foster government as surrogate parent.





And after years have been spent


In comfortable servitude, an uneasy discontent


Nags him into reconsidering his aims.


Do the dirhams, riyals or monetary gains


justify remaining abroad? Indolence overrides


his qualms. He stays, till someone else decides.


It is too late then to return the gold


For which his prime years he sold.





Published in DAWN, 25 August 1990.