Heart touching .........

Is There Life after Gulf?

By Jimmy Noronha, Lucknow

(Jimmy Noronha originally from Belloor, Bantwal has extensively travelled abroad and is now settled at Lucknow. Here he shares his own experience in life after spending a few years in the Gulf and tries to allay the fears of the post-Gulf insecurity syndrome.)

Aug 23, 2009 It is but natural for one who has worked in the Gulf to think what the future would be like! After the end of ones career in the Gulf, and particularly if one happens to be reasonably young and has a few years left for active service to return with the desire to work in India. Well, do not take it to heart, where there is a will there is a way; all that you need to do is to keep yourself fit both in body, mind and spirit and the rest will take its course if only you have the will to work and utilize fruitfully the fleeting time. I did have my fair share of worries while I worked in the Gulf for several years, from 1973 till 1987 with a two-year break between 1975-1977 till I could take it no more, or at least that was how I felt then and ultimately decided to resign and return to India. I was employed in an oil company and if any job of that company was to be advertised in India, as was subsequently done in the accounts department, innumerable applications would have come pouring in. I decided to have none of it, I just made up my mind that enough was enough, hence I was going back to be with my family and enjoy the rest of my days. To begin with, no sooner had I landed a job in the Gulf in the beginning of 1973, after quitting a decent job with Tatas in the Bombay House, than I began to feel lonely and to miss my family. And this was all the more aggravated by the fact that there was absolutely no chance of getting my family to the Gulf during those days when Oman was in the developing stage and where housing was virtually non-existent. However, I had this luxury of getting the air and taxi fare up to my door anywhere in India, every six months with 33 days leave (3 days to make up for the travel time!). I was still young and my marriage was only 10 months old when my wife was left behind alone in a rented flat in Bombay (now Mumbai). Moreover she was expecting our first baby, hence the urge to be with my family got all the more acute and finally things got the better of me. After working for two years, I quit my job. My colleagues thought I had committed a Himalayan blunder. But I did not regret it at all. On the contrary I thought they had every right to think so, particularly because a stream of applications was coming in response to a job that the company advertised in the accounts department! But I would have none of it, and quit my job and returned to India. The last nail in the coffin was hit and my decision having been made after I happened to visit a large club assigned exclusively for some privileged class of people where drinks flowed generously, where women danced in the arms of their partners till they were sozzled and I being a TCN felt like a misfit in such an 'august' society. Some even looked at me in askance. It did not take much time for me, after I ended my tryst with the Gulf and I soon got employed in India, during my short sojourn, particularly in Lucknow. Within a span of three months I changed my job thrice and finally settled down only to find myself drawn back to the Gulf and, yes, this time, for a change, the Gulf got the better of me and I, rather meekly, went back to Oman after working for two years in Lucknow. While I was returning to the Gulf these words were still on my mind and getting the better of me. You will return in no time; go back to India! This was what my boss told me while I was determined to resign the job. How very prophetic he was. The factor that pulled me back to the Gulf was that during the course of my stay in India my family expanded, my expenses increased, and I lived in fear that my dream of owning a house may never come into fruition. So, the only alternative was to put my career in reverse gear and head back to the Gulf! Yes, to the Gulf I did go at the end of 1977, and this time I worked for a construction company quite a climbdown from an oil company to the construction field but all the while my sight was fixed on a firm of my earlier standing, to work for and as luck would have it, I had an understanding employer, who went out of the way to place me in a firm of international repute. I could by now see that things were falling in place according to my liking and prayers. I could easily save some money for my dream house, I got feelers that my wife might be absorbed in the Central School if ever she were to make it to the Gulf. My family had by now thanks to those two years' break had expanded to five, three children, and we two. My family landed in Oman in early 1983. My wife having taught for years in reputable schools managed to pass the interview and got into the teaching profession, and she went to school with all the three children in tow. I soon became the owner of a Toyota Cressida, and things started to fall in line with my humble wish. Then there came a sudden twist and I wonder if even the gods could get envious of human happiness at times. In 1986 there was a sharp decline in oil prices and my company lost most of the international projects to the competitors and started retrenching staff one by one. Finally the axe fell on me and I would not go in for a job where one had to cut all possible corners and it was beyond me to live the life of a miser if I were to pull on in the Gulf. I confided in my wife of my decision to quit and return to India and she gave me a free hand to do what I thought was the best in the interest of the family. My children initially were studying in Lucknow in their formative years, and when I decided to settle in Chennai rather than in Mangalore, I did not have much savings to counter the huge financial burden that was thrust upon me. I was unemployed, so was my wife and then the future of my three children would be at stake, if one of us were to fall ill? I felt as I was groping in the dark. To make matters worse, neither my wife nor I could get suitably employed job in Chennai, a place where most of the people migrate to Bombay or other places in search of employment and here I had to do just the opposite. My children could get admission only in sub-standard schools in Chennai, and I then went to Mangalore to explore the possibility of settling there but I was not greeted with open arms as I expected besides my children had to face the language problem. So I finally decided to settle in Lucknow where my children were born and had their initial schooling in reputable educational institutions. Soon after I returned to Lucknow in 1987 from Chennai, after withdrawing my children from their two-month-long schooling in Chennai, I finally decided to stay in a rented house and in no time things began to fall in place in my favour. I had an understanding brother-in-law who with my sister-in-law, sheltered my family for three months till I got a rented house and till my children got admitted in the renowned schools in Lucknow. At last I was virtually called in and offered a pensionable job in an autonomous body of the Government while my wife got employed in a well-known girls convent school in Lucknow. Now the question arose about owning a house. With what little money I managed to save while in the Gulf, I did not hesitate to invest virtually almost all of it in the house that I built and again the value of the property around my house, being in a VIP area, started to escalate. So with my dream of owning a house having been realized, I tried to focus on giving the best possible education to my children. Both my sons wanted to study abroad for a while and for that they had to work and save to become an IT Engineer and a fashion designer. Prudently they saved enough for their foreign sojourn and studied in the UK and Columbia University USA, and are well settled now. As for my wife and myself, we keep busy with our coaching career which has helped us financially and also helped us to educate our children and get our daughter happily married. She has taken after her mother and teaches in a reputable school; she is married to a boy of her own choice, and now she is the mother of two children. As for my wife and me, we both live on our own coaching, age no bar, and yes the sons have been settled satisfactorily abroad while we still continue to work on our own, not to speak of the benefit of my Government pension. Life in the Gulf is only a stepping stone to a better future and all one has to do is own a house, provide good education to the children and to settle them in life, thus making the best use of what limited finances are left, either by investing in real estate and then not being complacent but to keeping healthy in mind and body and utilizing the God-given talent to work until one can possibly do. Life, as a matter of fact, starts after returning from the Gulf, provided one is wise enough to explore and make use of the God-sent opportunities that come ones way. - daijiworld