The Eternal Immigrant

Have you ever tried to sprinkle water on an ant-hill? If you have you'd have instantly noticed a haphazard exodus of ants from that hill. Pour a full cup and you have a phenomenon called emigration. The idea is no different for humans. All humans by virtue of their innate penchant for survival follow the law of emigration. Where we are today is where we got pushed to, for reasons in our control or otherwise. So the worldwide furore over laws to curb the flow of humanity from one place to another is just as inconsequential as building an earthen bulwark to stem an all-engulfing flood.

A while back I read Khushwant Singh's "Train to Pakistan". It tells of the indecision, pain, helplessness and remorse involved in the process of emigrating during the partition of India. It tells of the tumult within when the unwillingness to leave ones' home is overshadowed by an environment that renders that home "unlivable". It compels one to imagine waking up one morning and being told to leave town for no reason. All the whys, wheres and hows are left behind among the rubbles as one scampers to join that haphazard exodus.

As a little boy I have heard stories from my grandmother- About her journey from Bangladesh with her family post-partition of Bengal to the newly defined India. You could see the twinkle in her eyes as she proudly narrated how she hid a sewing machine under her seat when the guards came to check the train. She also spoke of a woman who hid fish in her jewellery box (that she had conspicuously hidden under her dress) to deviate the attention of the guards. The real jewels were hidden away in some shabby luggage that her husband carried. There were numerous other tales that would raise the hackles and invoke the fear of death. Even if one was to take all the blood and gore out of these emigrant tales and treat them as mere travelogues it would be impossible to take the pathos out of them. The heart beats faster and the tension palpitates against the eardrum every time they are told. The tales of toil that followed for these families from the comfort of their homes to the refugee camps are topics that are only raised in the history columns and journals today. They are not celebrated on 15th August. Nor are they told to the little ones of our country. The grandparents are gone and the ones left behind find it convineant to forget them.

But the natural phenomenon that it is, emigration did not stop with a historic event like independence. Humanity kept transgressing state barriers as seamlessly as ants travel over contours of sand dunes. Every state had its inflow and outflow of humanity. There was furore only when the rate of inflow exceeded the rate of outflow. Terms like "refugees", "immigrants", "parasites" and other choicest vernacular synonyms are just collaterals of such events. Come to think of it we are all emigrants. If you think you are not, look a generation back. If you are still not convinced, go further back. That place that we call our own is just because we happen to be there now at this point in time. Like Hiesenberg proved long ago, noone's address can be absolutely defined.

A good understanding of the phenomenon of immigration is incomplete without a good understanding of the reasons behind emigration. Why these people came here cannot be defined without knowledge of why the same people left there. Take a nascent city like Bangalore for example. Ten years ago it promised to be an abode for a generation of engineers scampering for jobs all over the country. Each village/town/state from where people immigrated to Bangalore had a drawback that was adressed here; Be it the weather, the work culture, the competition, the opportunity, infrastructure et al. The reason for all these micro-immigrations may have been vastly different, but the phenomenon itself is no different from the ones post independence from east or west-Pakistan to India - That is, towards a better place. Calcutta went through the same phase many years back and going by the trends, Bangalore will soon be there, older and wiser. For now it is just about done playing under the blissful sky and beginning to feel that heat.

The Bala Sahebs of the world can cry hoarse against the influx of immigrants in their state, but fail to explain where their clan was dwelling a couple of centuries before their predecessor called the land their own. While it is natural to pledge ones birth-place as ones own it is also important to understand that what really defines one is character and not the soil on which one stands. Humans are different from immobile statues in that sense. Orson Welles once asked an FBI officer to define a "communist" when he was accused of being one. Expectedly, the officer did not have a clear understanding of what the word meant. I will conclude with mentioning just in passing that an immigrations officer at the JFK airport in NYC and the definition of "immigrant" have much the same relation in common. The world will only be a better place if we accept that we all belong to a singular race of eternal immigrants.


Note: The photo was taken at the Ellis Island. No better place that stands testimony to the journey of immigrants.