Abstract
In primordial times, migration and exile had the capacity of providing security, succour or solace for people who were no longer safe in their traditional homelands. Early fictional works on migration and exile were basically deployed to paint a picture of how an individual who was faced with an existentialist challenge was able to overcome the situation and have a new, positive experience altogether. In contemporary times, however, artistic portrayal of migration/exile narratives tends to paint a seemingly opposite picture of the experience. This is the thrust of this study which examines the basis, trajectory and aftermath of migration in DeeparkUnniskrishnan's Temporary People. The study adopts trauma theory for its framework. The interpretive design was adopted.The tropes deployed are the diaspora, nostalgia, identity negotiation and return migration. Findings reveal that disenchanting realities, particularly ambivalences, displacement, alienation, solitude, and hostility typify the Indian and other Third-World migrants' experience in their host land. Related tropes of rootlessness, frustration, and trauma encapsulate their experience in the United Arab Emirates. Trauma among the migrants finds expression in anxiety, self- estrangement, psychosis and depression. Thus, rather than being the much anticipated Eldorado, the suffering inherent in exile becomes more severe than the ones the migrants had run away from in their native homelands. Among Third-World subjects, migration is a phantasmal search for the ideal and an experience in ambivalences.
Introduction
Generally, migration denotes the movement of living organisms – animals, plants, andhumans – from one location or region to another for numerous and varied reasons. But of these three categories, only human migration may be deemed to be deliberate, time- bound, purpose-driven, and distance-specific. Among the numerous realities of human history, migration is one of the most recurring experiences as people, the world over, do have reasons to leave or want to leave their traditional homelands for a new one. In fact, there appears to exist an innate tendency on the part of man to leave their traditional homeland for a new, sometimes, foreign one. Studies abound about the early migration of people from one part of the earth to another. In “The Great Human Migration”, for example, Guy Gugliota posits that homo sapiens first lived in Africa and that at about seventy to eighty thousand years ago, these peoples began to disperse and fill the remaining parts of the world as a result of sustained changes in the climatic conditions of the initial settlement (https://www.smithsonianmag.com). In the same vein, Michael Price, a foremost American archaeologist, notes that “all non-Africans alive today descend from a single wave of migration out of Africa, perhaps between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago”, and that the need to explore the world formed the basis of the journey (https://www.science.org). This is further corroborated by Michael De Filippo, et al, whose study also traces the first ever human migration to Africa,which migration saw people move and occupy the present day Asia, Europe, America, Australia, and indeed every other part of the world(https:/www.researchgate.net).
The Bible, which, incontestably, is one of the earliest sources of English literature especially during the Medieval and Renaissance Periods, is inundated with enormous migration stories or accounts. For example, on divine instruction, Abraham had to leave his biological home, Ur, for Canaan, to establish a new nation. Jacob and his family migrated from Canaan to Egypt to avert a severe famine. Several years later, and on divine instruction, the same family, this time as a nation (Israel), migrated from Egypt to the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses. The scriptures also records that Jesus' family had to migrate from Bethlehem to Egypt to avoid King Herod's persecution (The Holy Bible, Genesis 11, 12, 46; Exodus 1; Matthew 2). Like migration, exile also has some primeval underpinnings. Just like the picture created above on biblical migration, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as a result of their disobedience may be regarded as a literary narrative of a movement away from home to exile, as it marked the beginning of man's wandering on the surface of the earth. This exilic wandering was continued by their offspring typified by Cain who killed his brother, Abel, out of unbridled envy and anger, and like his parents, received a curse from God (The Holy Bible, Genesis 3 and 4).
The Bible, which, incontestably, is one of the earliest sources of English literature especially during the Medieval and Renaissance Periods, is inundated with enormous migration stories or accounts. For example, on divine instruction, Abraham had to leave his biological home, Ur, for Canaan, to establish a new nation. Jacob and his family migrated from Canaan to Egypt to avert a severe famine. Several years later, and on divine instruction, the same family, this time as a nation (Israel), migrated from Egypt to the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses. The scriptures also records that Jesus' family had to migrate from Bethlehem to Egypt to avoid King Herod's persecution (The Holy Bible, Genesis 11, 12, 46; Exodus 1; Matthew 2). Like migration, exile also has some primeval underpinnings. Just like the picture created above on biblical migration, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as a result of their disobedience may be regarded as a literary narrative of a movement away from home to exile, as it marked the beginning of man's wandering on the surface of the earth. This exilic wandering was continued by their offspring typified by Cain who killed his brother, Abel, out of unbridled envy and anger, and like his parents, received a curse from God (The Holy Bible, Genesis 3 and 4).
Content
The literary art is replete with enormous exilic inscriptions or representations. For example, upon discovering, after many years, that he killed his father, Laius, at the crossroads, and later married his mother, Jocasta, Oedipus blinds himself and gets banished from Thebes. This exile is a form of punishment and a way to purify the city from the pollution caused by his (Oedipus) abominable deeds (Sophocles' OedipustheKing). This
scenario is almost exactly recreated in Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not to Blame, adapted from Sophocles' OedipusRex. Here, Odewale suffers Oedipus's fate by being banished from Kutuje after it is convincingly established that the man he killed at the place where the three footpaths meet and the woman he subsequently married were his biological father and mother, respectively. In a somewhat different scenario, Okonkwo, upon killing, inadvertently though, a fellow Umuofian, is banished from the clan for seven years. Thus, for all these years, Okonkwo remains an exile in Mbanta, his maternal community, where he is granted a familial asylum in tandem with the culture of the people. In Mbanta, Okonkwo, alongside his wives and children, lives peacefully, engages in economic activities, and prospers therefrom (Things Fall Apart, 1958, pp. 103-134). It is indeed safe to observe that right from primordial times, exile/migration had the capacity to provide solace to those who were confronted with some existentialist situations or challenges.
In contemporary times, however, artistic depiction of exile/migration narratives tends to paint a seemingly opposite picture of the experience. Rather than being the much- anticipated Eldorado, migration in recent times is presented by many authors as risk-laden, precarious, and terrible experience especially among Third-World subjects. In The Human Cost of African Migration, for example, Toyin Falola examines the pains African and indeed Third-World migrants go through in a bid to leave the shores of their continent for Europe, America, and other economically viable segments of the world. The author observes that there has been a rather unprecedented and pervasive rise in migration trends among young Africans who seek greener pastures and a new lease of life in other climes. Falola's work succinctly paints a hypothetical picture reflective of the notion that African and indeed Third-World subjects are willing to pay any price humanly possible to have their lives improved somewhere far away from their traditional homelands (cited in Micah Asukwo, 2023, p. 61). However, quite disheartening is the fact that these journeys do end up, in most cases disillusioning, lamentable and therefore, regrettable. This is the thrust of this study which examines the disenchanting, alienating, lamentable, ambivalent and trauma-laden aftermaths of migration in Deepak Unikrishnan's Temporary People.
Review of Related Literature
Temporary People was published in New York in 2017. Its author, Deepak Unnikrishnan, who hails from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), resides in the United States of America. The work has received enormous critical reactions. Reviewing the novel for the Oak Literary Magazine, Elizabeth Jaeger notes that Deepak Unnikrishnan's debut work of fiction weaves together twenty eight short stories that explore the untoward experiences encountered by immigrant labourers from the Asian continent who find themselves in the UAE. These Asian migrants, Jaeger notes, undergo harrowing experiences that may be likened to “a purgatory of sorts” in view of its dehumanising disposition (http://www.the literaryreview.org). She describes the condition of migrants in the UAE as portrayed in the novel as “ghastly and deplorable”, a status situation that adversely affects the migrants' “psyches, families, memories, fables and languages” (http://www.theliteraryreview.org). On the author's spectacular style, Jaeger notes that Unnikrishnan deliberately deploys vivid images to capture the condition of each
character's experience even as she views the entire stories as haunting, empathy-invoking, raging, and despair-inclined. Jaeger rounds off her review by stating that Unnikrishnan's work is a must-read for everyone especially those who fantasises foreign nations as holding the key to their happiness, not anticipating or foreseeing the disillusioning or regrettable situations or realities that abound therein (http://www.the literaryreview.org).
Also reviewing the novel, Saadia Faruqi notes that only very few persons are aware of the travails faced by foreign nationals or migrants who live in the United Arab Emirates also called the Gulf States. For Faruqi, news reports that emanate from the region do focus more on the locals and their kings, and that it is very rare to find the western media discuss the challenges faced by foreigners whom he describes as “the largest percentage of the Gulf populations” (https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com). Faruqi is, however, excited to find Unnikrishnan's novel attempting to break the jinx and as well blaze the trail in an effort to draw the world's attention to this group of hitherto diminished, forgotten, and neglected, yet very important segment of the UAE's population. He describes migrants in the UAE as those brought in from Third-World countries, and “given tasks to complete, then sent back home spent and useless” (https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com). The migrants, he notes, are like objects caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, and that in spite of working very hard to develop the region, they have no hope of gaining citizenship, “and through appearance, language, and culture, they stand out as different from the real citizens of the Gulf States” (http://www.the literaryreview.org). Faruqi is at home with the novelist's style of narration which he describes as a mixture of contemporary settings with a hint of fantasy. Moreover, Unnikrishnan's novel, for him, portrays and projects the unreal, the real and the surreal.
In “Challenging Migration Narratives in Deepak Unnikrishnan's Temporary People”, Raya Alraddadi argues that Unnikrishnan's work unequivocally challenges dominant migration narratives which tend to focus more on mundane issues rather than the concrete realities and experiences of migrants in their host lands. The critic further notes that Unnikrishnan's deliberate effort at adequately presenting the concrete experiences of the “exploited and estranged individuals who are often positioned outside the narrative itself” speaks to his poise to develop “a broader critical perspective that addresses the impact of global power on emerging narratives of labour migration” (https://www.muse.jhu.edu). On his part, Mohammed Illyas, in his “Critical Discourse Analysis of Diaspora Writings: A New Paradigm”, notes that literary critics who are basically engaged in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) appeared to have been confined to “political and socio-political contexts” and that Unnikrishnan's text opens a new “diasporic dimension” or vista for critics involved in CDA as the text “will expand the horizon of the research domain of CDA and motivate researchers in both literature and language domains to explore new research avenues” (https://www.archive.aessweb.com.). Thus, for Illyas, Unnikrishnan's Temporary People has contributed towards widening the scope and dimension of Critical Discourse Analysis.It is, however, expedient to note that of all that has been reviewed, none of the works centres categorically on the motifs and dialectics of exile and trauma in the text, which is the preoccupation of this research.
Exilic Ambivalences, Disillusionment and Trauma in Deepak Unikrishnan's
Temporary People
Migrationis an outcome of tensions between the individual's desires and perceived, anticipated, or hoped-for opportunities (White, 1995, p 15.). One of the implications, among others, is that the predominant catalyst for migration and indeed migrants generally is hope – hope for a better experience in all ramifications as opposed to despair in one's homeland. However, in spite of the enormous hope that ordinarily serves as its stimulus, migration, White believes, is an experience in ambivalences. It is characterised, essentially, by unanticipated, unforeseen, and profound uncertainties. White (1995, p. 3) foregrounds this assertion when he notes that migration is “rarely absolute, unambivalent or final; it is not a cause and consequence of a definite break with a cultural life that is part of history, but a partial and conditional state, characterised by ambiguity and indeterminacy”.
Generally speaking, migration is a journey in search of livelihood, better quality of life and living, improved social status, and general life's stability. In many instances, migration appears to be the last resort on the part of those whose societies or nations have carefully, tactically, and/or subtly abandoned their primary responsibility of providing the enabling environment for survival for their citizens, thereby leaving their survival in their own hands or in the hands of fate. As a consequence, such societies or climes do witness a massive movement of their citizens to faraway places that are capable of providing them a lifeline in terms of job opportunities and other necessities of life. The result is that, if offered opportunity, some members of these prospect-bereft societies or nations would not want to go back to their traditional homelands; they might want to fulfil any condition, including working extra hard, to be members or citizens of the new homeland, given the life- enhancing opportunities that abound therein. In terms of the number of years spent in a particular environment, some members of the Third-World nations do actually meet the common requirements to become citizens of the new homeland having lived their youthful and latter lives there. But very unfortunately, and, in spite of having lived their entire active days there, members of these Third-World nations normally discover to their chagrin that they do not just belong, and that they are foreigners, exiles or the Other. This perpetually deferred hope, anxiety, and aspiration of migrants who have spent their entire active years in foreign lands without the prospect of acquiring citizenship there is the focus of this section of the study as depicted in Deepak Unnikrishnan's Temporary People.
Unnikrishnan's Temporary People (henceforth, TP) chronicles the rather bizarre and delusionary experience of Third-World migrants of Indian, Pakistani, Nepali, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi origin who find themselves in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, all bubbling cities that constitute parts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), popularly called the Emirates. They are there as migrant workers and found in the construction industry and indeed many other sectors of the Emirates' economy. The migrants, majority of whom are Indians, are in legions and constitute over seventy per cent of the workforce of the entire Gulf region (www.reseearchgate.net). They are the nurses, gardeners, artisans, masons, nannies, mechanics, storekeepers, interior decorators, electricians, barbers, security guards, taxi drivers, carpet sellers, morgue cleaners, photographers, to mention just a few (TP, 2017,
pp.137-139). However, in spite of their intimidating number which makes it appear as if the entire Gulf region would not thrive economically without them, they are regarded or treated as aliens, exiles, and, as the title of Unnikrishnan's text suggests, temporary people. They are those who can be dispensed with anytime the authorities so deem fit without batting an eyelid.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the most economically strong, viable, and prospective countries not only on the Asian continent but the entire world. As of 2020, its population was estimated at 9.6million. It has its capital at Abu Dhabi, often times considered the centre of the Emirates' oil industry. Other prominent cities in the Emirates include Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Qaywayn, and Ra's Al-khaymah. The Emirates' economy has been adjudged one of the fastest growing in the world with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita estimated at 43,103.3U$D while its Gross National Income (GNI) per capita stood at 70.430U$D, making it one of the top ten richest countries in the world (https://www.britannica.com/place/dubai-). Given the fact of its relatively small population vis-à-vis the economic activities that abound therein, it is natural that the country welcomes some foreign hands to come in and avail themselves of the various ranges of economic activities that therein abound. This is, perhaps, the basis for the flourishing of the Emirates with migrant workers majority of whom are from the developing countries of the Asian continent – India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh (TP, 2017, pp.85-86). These migrant workers constitute over seventy per cent of the workforce of the Emirates. Indians, for instance, find the Gulf coast their second home as far as migration prospect is concerned. They go there in their numbers basically as unskilled labourers, and as those who can afford to do any category of menial jobs for a fee (www.britannica.com/place/dubai-). Their experience in the Gulf is, perhaps, the basis for Unnikrishnan's narrative and indeed other related narratives which have the Gulf coast as their setting. It is probably the reason why exile, as an experience, continues to have a widened definition, description or conceptualisation by scholars.
Migrants in Abu Dhabi are not regarded or treated as human beings; in fact, they are not even treated as exiles which, of course, they are. They are rather treated as expendable, replaceable, and worthless property or things with absolutely no value. The migrant workers, majority of whom are Indians, form part of the workforce in the high-rise buildings or skyscrapers that inundate the Gulf cities and work even at nights. Rather than provide proper medical services for these workers, a quack nurse (Anna) is employed to “tape construction workers who fell from incomplete buildings” (TP, p.9). Khalid, the contractor in charge of the building does not deem it necessary to have these workers receive proper medical attention in cases of eventualities, which are indeed regular. The constant nature of these eventualities is not unconnected with the fact that these workers are made to work even in the dead of the night to satisfy the whims and caprices of their employers. Naturally, these workers are bound to feel sleepy, get tired, grow weak, or become fatigued. This is why a good number of them do frequently fall from any of the floors of the buildings unabated and get wounded. When such situations occur, Anna would be required to stitch their wounds before asking them to leave the construction site...(Download full article below)
scenario is almost exactly recreated in Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not to Blame, adapted from Sophocles' OedipusRex. Here, Odewale suffers Oedipus's fate by being banished from Kutuje after it is convincingly established that the man he killed at the place where the three footpaths meet and the woman he subsequently married were his biological father and mother, respectively. In a somewhat different scenario, Okonkwo, upon killing, inadvertently though, a fellow Umuofian, is banished from the clan for seven years. Thus, for all these years, Okonkwo remains an exile in Mbanta, his maternal community, where he is granted a familial asylum in tandem with the culture of the people. In Mbanta, Okonkwo, alongside his wives and children, lives peacefully, engages in economic activities, and prospers therefrom (Things Fall Apart, 1958, pp. 103-134). It is indeed safe to observe that right from primordial times, exile/migration had the capacity to provide solace to those who were confronted with some existentialist situations or challenges.
In contemporary times, however, artistic depiction of exile/migration narratives tends to paint a seemingly opposite picture of the experience. Rather than being the much- anticipated Eldorado, migration in recent times is presented by many authors as risk-laden, precarious, and terrible experience especially among Third-World subjects. In The Human Cost of African Migration, for example, Toyin Falola examines the pains African and indeed Third-World migrants go through in a bid to leave the shores of their continent for Europe, America, and other economically viable segments of the world. The author observes that there has been a rather unprecedented and pervasive rise in migration trends among young Africans who seek greener pastures and a new lease of life in other climes. Falola's work succinctly paints a hypothetical picture reflective of the notion that African and indeed Third-World subjects are willing to pay any price humanly possible to have their lives improved somewhere far away from their traditional homelands (cited in Micah Asukwo, 2023, p. 61). However, quite disheartening is the fact that these journeys do end up, in most cases disillusioning, lamentable and therefore, regrettable. This is the thrust of this study which examines the disenchanting, alienating, lamentable, ambivalent and trauma-laden aftermaths of migration in Deepak Unikrishnan's Temporary People.
Review of Related Literature
Temporary People was published in New York in 2017. Its author, Deepak Unnikrishnan, who hails from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), resides in the United States of America. The work has received enormous critical reactions. Reviewing the novel for the Oak Literary Magazine, Elizabeth Jaeger notes that Deepak Unnikrishnan's debut work of fiction weaves together twenty eight short stories that explore the untoward experiences encountered by immigrant labourers from the Asian continent who find themselves in the UAE. These Asian migrants, Jaeger notes, undergo harrowing experiences that may be likened to “a purgatory of sorts” in view of its dehumanising disposition (http://www.the literaryreview.org). She describes the condition of migrants in the UAE as portrayed in the novel as “ghastly and deplorable”, a status situation that adversely affects the migrants' “psyches, families, memories, fables and languages” (http://www.theliteraryreview.org). On the author's spectacular style, Jaeger notes that Unnikrishnan deliberately deploys vivid images to capture the condition of each
character's experience even as she views the entire stories as haunting, empathy-invoking, raging, and despair-inclined. Jaeger rounds off her review by stating that Unnikrishnan's work is a must-read for everyone especially those who fantasises foreign nations as holding the key to their happiness, not anticipating or foreseeing the disillusioning or regrettable situations or realities that abound therein (http://www.the literaryreview.org).
Also reviewing the novel, Saadia Faruqi notes that only very few persons are aware of the travails faced by foreign nationals or migrants who live in the United Arab Emirates also called the Gulf States. For Faruqi, news reports that emanate from the region do focus more on the locals and their kings, and that it is very rare to find the western media discuss the challenges faced by foreigners whom he describes as “the largest percentage of the Gulf populations” (https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com). Faruqi is, however, excited to find Unnikrishnan's novel attempting to break the jinx and as well blaze the trail in an effort to draw the world's attention to this group of hitherto diminished, forgotten, and neglected, yet very important segment of the UAE's population. He describes migrants in the UAE as those brought in from Third-World countries, and “given tasks to complete, then sent back home spent and useless” (https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com). The migrants, he notes, are like objects caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, and that in spite of working very hard to develop the region, they have no hope of gaining citizenship, “and through appearance, language, and culture, they stand out as different from the real citizens of the Gulf States” (http://www.the literaryreview.org). Faruqi is at home with the novelist's style of narration which he describes as a mixture of contemporary settings with a hint of fantasy. Moreover, Unnikrishnan's novel, for him, portrays and projects the unreal, the real and the surreal.
In “Challenging Migration Narratives in Deepak Unnikrishnan's Temporary People”, Raya Alraddadi argues that Unnikrishnan's work unequivocally challenges dominant migration narratives which tend to focus more on mundane issues rather than the concrete realities and experiences of migrants in their host lands. The critic further notes that Unnikrishnan's deliberate effort at adequately presenting the concrete experiences of the “exploited and estranged individuals who are often positioned outside the narrative itself” speaks to his poise to develop “a broader critical perspective that addresses the impact of global power on emerging narratives of labour migration” (https://www.muse.jhu.edu). On his part, Mohammed Illyas, in his “Critical Discourse Analysis of Diaspora Writings: A New Paradigm”, notes that literary critics who are basically engaged in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) appeared to have been confined to “political and socio-political contexts” and that Unnikrishnan's text opens a new “diasporic dimension” or vista for critics involved in CDA as the text “will expand the horizon of the research domain of CDA and motivate researchers in both literature and language domains to explore new research avenues” (https://www.archive.aessweb.com.). Thus, for Illyas, Unnikrishnan's Temporary People has contributed towards widening the scope and dimension of Critical Discourse Analysis.It is, however, expedient to note that of all that has been reviewed, none of the works centres categorically on the motifs and dialectics of exile and trauma in the text, which is the preoccupation of this research.
Exilic Ambivalences, Disillusionment and Trauma in Deepak Unikrishnan's
Temporary People
Migrationis an outcome of tensions between the individual's desires and perceived, anticipated, or hoped-for opportunities (White, 1995, p 15.). One of the implications, among others, is that the predominant catalyst for migration and indeed migrants generally is hope – hope for a better experience in all ramifications as opposed to despair in one's homeland. However, in spite of the enormous hope that ordinarily serves as its stimulus, migration, White believes, is an experience in ambivalences. It is characterised, essentially, by unanticipated, unforeseen, and profound uncertainties. White (1995, p. 3) foregrounds this assertion when he notes that migration is “rarely absolute, unambivalent or final; it is not a cause and consequence of a definite break with a cultural life that is part of history, but a partial and conditional state, characterised by ambiguity and indeterminacy”.
Generally speaking, migration is a journey in search of livelihood, better quality of life and living, improved social status, and general life's stability. In many instances, migration appears to be the last resort on the part of those whose societies or nations have carefully, tactically, and/or subtly abandoned their primary responsibility of providing the enabling environment for survival for their citizens, thereby leaving their survival in their own hands or in the hands of fate. As a consequence, such societies or climes do witness a massive movement of their citizens to faraway places that are capable of providing them a lifeline in terms of job opportunities and other necessities of life. The result is that, if offered opportunity, some members of these prospect-bereft societies or nations would not want to go back to their traditional homelands; they might want to fulfil any condition, including working extra hard, to be members or citizens of the new homeland, given the life- enhancing opportunities that abound therein. In terms of the number of years spent in a particular environment, some members of the Third-World nations do actually meet the common requirements to become citizens of the new homeland having lived their youthful and latter lives there. But very unfortunately, and, in spite of having lived their entire active days there, members of these Third-World nations normally discover to their chagrin that they do not just belong, and that they are foreigners, exiles or the Other. This perpetually deferred hope, anxiety, and aspiration of migrants who have spent their entire active years in foreign lands without the prospect of acquiring citizenship there is the focus of this section of the study as depicted in Deepak Unnikrishnan's Temporary People.
Unnikrishnan's Temporary People (henceforth, TP) chronicles the rather bizarre and delusionary experience of Third-World migrants of Indian, Pakistani, Nepali, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi origin who find themselves in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, all bubbling cities that constitute parts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), popularly called the Emirates. They are there as migrant workers and found in the construction industry and indeed many other sectors of the Emirates' economy. The migrants, majority of whom are Indians, are in legions and constitute over seventy per cent of the workforce of the entire Gulf region (www.reseearchgate.net). They are the nurses, gardeners, artisans, masons, nannies, mechanics, storekeepers, interior decorators, electricians, barbers, security guards, taxi drivers, carpet sellers, morgue cleaners, photographers, to mention just a few (TP, 2017,
pp.137-139). However, in spite of their intimidating number which makes it appear as if the entire Gulf region would not thrive economically without them, they are regarded or treated as aliens, exiles, and, as the title of Unnikrishnan's text suggests, temporary people. They are those who can be dispensed with anytime the authorities so deem fit without batting an eyelid.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the most economically strong, viable, and prospective countries not only on the Asian continent but the entire world. As of 2020, its population was estimated at 9.6million. It has its capital at Abu Dhabi, often times considered the centre of the Emirates' oil industry. Other prominent cities in the Emirates include Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Qaywayn, and Ra's Al-khaymah. The Emirates' economy has been adjudged one of the fastest growing in the world with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita estimated at 43,103.3U$D while its Gross National Income (GNI) per capita stood at 70.430U$D, making it one of the top ten richest countries in the world (https://www.britannica.com/place/dubai-). Given the fact of its relatively small population vis-à-vis the economic activities that abound therein, it is natural that the country welcomes some foreign hands to come in and avail themselves of the various ranges of economic activities that therein abound. This is, perhaps, the basis for the flourishing of the Emirates with migrant workers majority of whom are from the developing countries of the Asian continent – India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh (TP, 2017, pp.85-86). These migrant workers constitute over seventy per cent of the workforce of the Emirates. Indians, for instance, find the Gulf coast their second home as far as migration prospect is concerned. They go there in their numbers basically as unskilled labourers, and as those who can afford to do any category of menial jobs for a fee (www.britannica.com/place/dubai-). Their experience in the Gulf is, perhaps, the basis for Unnikrishnan's narrative and indeed other related narratives which have the Gulf coast as their setting. It is probably the reason why exile, as an experience, continues to have a widened definition, description or conceptualisation by scholars.
Migrants in Abu Dhabi are not regarded or treated as human beings; in fact, they are not even treated as exiles which, of course, they are. They are rather treated as expendable, replaceable, and worthless property or things with absolutely no value. The migrant workers, majority of whom are Indians, form part of the workforce in the high-rise buildings or skyscrapers that inundate the Gulf cities and work even at nights. Rather than provide proper medical services for these workers, a quack nurse (Anna) is employed to “tape construction workers who fell from incomplete buildings” (TP, p.9). Khalid, the contractor in charge of the building does not deem it necessary to have these workers receive proper medical attention in cases of eventualities, which are indeed regular. The constant nature of these eventualities is not unconnected with the fact that these workers are made to work even in the dead of the night to satisfy the whims and caprices of their employers. Naturally, these workers are bound to feel sleepy, get tired, grow weak, or become fatigued. This is why a good number of them do frequently fall from any of the floors of the buildings unabated and get wounded. When such situations occur, Anna would be required to stitch their wounds before asking them to leave the construction site...(Download full article below)
Conclusion
Migration is a journey in search of the means of survival. It is a movement from an economically mismanaged, socially unstable, and prospect/opportunity-bereft clime to a somewhat stable, life-supporting, economically viable, and prospects-building one. Globally, migration has assumed an unprecedented dimension in recent times, catalysed by the apparent inequality in the world in which very many countries continue to look up to a few others for survival. From this context, migration may be defined as the movement of members of the developing Third-World countries to the developed nations in search of the means of livelihood. However, in spite of the dogged resolve to abandon the traditional homeland for a new, foreign one, Third-World migrants soon come to grasp with the ambivalences of exile occasioned by the fact of alienation, displacement, solitude, hardship, nostalgia, hostility, and trauma. This study examined the odd experiences of Asian migrants in the United Arab Emirates and found that rather than being the much-anticipated Eldorado, the frustration, suffering, and misery inherent in exile appear more biting than the ones the migrants had run away from in their traditional homelands. Migration, therefore, especially among Third-World subjects, is a phantasmal search for the ideal and an experience in ambivalences.
References
Achebe, C. (1958). Things Fall Apart. Heinemann.
Alraddadi, R. (2023). “Challenging Migration Narratives in Deepak Unnikrishnan's Temporary People”. International Journal of Language and Literature Studies, 105-121.
Asukwo, M. (2023). The Human Cost of African Migrations. New York: Routledge, 2007.
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and HISTORY. The John Hopkins University Press.
Crush, J. (2003). Spatial Narratives of Migration in Southern Africa. Writingacross Worlds: Literature and Migration. Russell K., John C., & Paul, W (Eds.). Routledge, 243- 252.
Falola, T. (2007). The Human Cost of African Migration. Routledge.
Faruqi, S. 2017. Temporary People: ABook Review. Retrieved on 14th July 2019 from http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com.
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Falola, T. (2007). The Human Cost of African Migration. Routledge.
Faruqi, S. 2017. Temporary People: ABook Review. Retrieved on 14th July 2019 from http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com.
Filippo, M. et al. (2023). The History of Human Migration: AGenomic Approach. https://www.researchgate.net.
Gugliota, G. (2008). “The Great Human Migration”.https://www.smithsonianmag.com.
Illyas, M. (2021) “Critical Discourse Analysis of Diaspora Writings: ANew Paradigm”. International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies. Retrieved on Thursday, 4th April, 2025, from https://www.archive.aessweb.com.
Jaeger, E. “A Review of TemporaryPeopleby Deepak Unnikrishnan”. Retrieved on 15th August 2024 from http://www.theliterarybooks.org.
Price, M. 2023. “Ancient Humans Travelled Half the World before Main Migration out of Africa”. https://www.science.org.
Raji-Oyelade, A., Okunoye, O. (eds) (2008). The Postcolonial Lamp: Essays in Honourof Dan Izevbaye. Ibadan: Bookcraft, 73-93.
Rotimi, O. (1971). The gods are not to Blame. Oxford University Press.
Rushdie, S. (1991). Imaginary Homelands. Granta Books. Said, E. (2000). Reflections on Exile and other Essays. Granta. Sophocles. 2007. Oedipus the King. Filiquarian Publishing LLC. Unnikrishnan, D. (2017). Temporary People. Restless Books.
Visser, I. (2014). “Trauma and Power in Postcolonial Literary Studies”. M. Baelaev. (ed).
Journal of Postcolonial Writing. Routledge, 110-120.
White, P. (1995). “Geography, Literature and Migration”. R. King, J. Connell & W. Paul (eds.) Writing Across Worlds. Routledge, 3-15.
Zeleza, P. (2005). The Politics and Poetics of Exile: Edward Said in Africa. Research in African Literature.36 (3). Indiana University Press, 3-5.