SENDING IT ALL BACK HOME

Sending it all back home

The National

Vinita Bharadwaj

Last Updated: September 12. 2009 2:01AM UAE / September 11. 2009 10:01PM GMT

Most foreign workers come to the UAE to not only make money for themselves, but to support a network of family, friends and others back home. Vinita Bharadwaj reports from India and Dubai on those who sacrifice everything for financial freedom

Vinayagam insists on keeping his family name to himself, because the fear of losing his job is always on his mind.

“I don’t want any trouble from anywhere. I need this simple job, as it has made life for my family better,” says the 35-year-old cleaner, who has lived and worked in Dubai since 2005. Like many unskilled workers from South Asia, the round-faced Vinayagam, who refused to be photographed – again, the fear – arrived in the UAE in pursuit of a dream.


Vinayagam left India two years after the birth of his only son. The boy joined Vinayagam’s two daughters and wife, Lakshmi, in a tiny one-room hut. The house had no bathroom or sanitation facilities and the family of five was surviving on a monthly income of Rs2,000 (Dh150).

Looking to better his lot in life, Vinayagam paid an agent in India the huge sum of Rs35,000 (Dh2,640) to land a job with a Dubai-based construction firm. With no savings to pay the agent’s fee, he pledged the 1,350 sq ft plot of land he owned and secured a loan of Rs48,300 from an illegal moneylender in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Vinayagam’s native region.




“The agent’s fee was actually Rs70,000,” he explains. “My land secured me Rs60,000, but the moneylender held back three months’ interest at the rate of Rs3,900 per month. I could pay only half the amount with the loan and had to repay the rest in instalments after coming to Dubai. I gave Rs10,000 to my wife, Rs3,000 to my parents and landed in Dubai with Rs300 (Dhs23) in my pocket.”

Vinayagam’s job profile and salary details were clearly explained to him before his departure: he would earn a basic salary of Dh550, but would likely receive on average Dh900 every month, counting overtime. Accommodation and transportation to the work site would be provided by the company to which he was assigned.


“My wife was against me leaving, but we really needed the money if our family was to survive,” says Vinayagam, who did not study formally beyond the 5th grade. “My father used to go dig water wells when I was a boy and his sacrifice helped me own a plot of land. I reasoned with my wife that I had to go and build towers to help our children grow into educated adults.”

Although construction-site workers in India are paid an average daily wage of Rs400 (Dhs30), Vinayagam says he never managed to earn more than Rs5,000 (Dhs380) in a month in his homeland.

He repaid the agent’s fee and loan after six months on the job in Dubai.



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Vinayagam took a series of smaller loans from several moneylenders at lower interest rates and declared himself free of debt in 2007, two years after he arrived in Dubai.

He leaves his accommodations, which are in a labour camp, at 6am, and returns to the room he shares with five others at 7pm. He works as a building cleaner, and sweeps, mops and dusts the same floors and stairways every day. On returning to his room, he and his roommates team up to cook the evening’s meal of lentils and rice and the following day’s lunch, which is usually Indian flatbreads and a fried vegetable. Vinayagam works on Friday mornings, since the overtime increases his income, and sometimes goes to Bur Dubai’s bazaar to meet friends.


“I prefer it this way. If I had more free time, I would miss the family,” he says. On receiving his monthly salary, which comes in cash, he wires Dh700 to his wife through UAE Exchange. In turn, she spends about Rs4,000 (Dhs300) on household-related expenses and deposits the remainder in a local bank account.

Although he was eligible to visit home after working for his company for two years, Vinayagam opted to forego his first earned holiday, which included an air ticket paid for by his employer. Instead, he worked at securing a transfer from his company’s construction division to its cleaning department. The decision paid off.


“As a cleaner, even though my salary remains the same, I come into contact with many kind people who give me tips, and these tips add up to around Dhs200 every month,” he says. “It sorts out my phone and food expenses.”

When Vinayagam returned to India for a holiday, after working for three years in Dubai, one of his daughters, Bharani, refused to speak with him for a month. “She was upset that I hadn’t visited them,” he says, eyes tearing.


However, he was able to stay with his family for four months during that trip. He managed to raise the level of his house’s ground floor, which will help prevent flooding during the rainy season, replaced the thatched roof with one made of concrete and built an indoor bathroom. The improvements cost him Rs100,000 (Dhs7,540), but he saved on labour charges by doing the construction himself.

“From Dubai, I brought home two saris and a mobile phone for my wife and a gold necklace and earrings totalling 40 grams in weight for my daughters,” he says. “That’s all I could afford.”


The family has taken a Rs20,000 (Dhs1,510) bank loan against the gold to enrol Bharani, 8, and her brother, Mohan Ram, 6, in a private school that teaches in English. The poor usually cannot afford such an extravagance, but these institutions are seen as a sign of social progress and Vinayagam and his wife hope sending the children to the school will give them a competitive edge when they attend university.


The children are a handful for their 29-year-old mother, Lakshmi, who is raising them without any assistance from her husband’s family. Such neglect from her in-laws is uncommon in Indian society, which encourages a joint family structure when it comes to support, especially when the man of the house is away. However, infighting within the family has resulted in her living alone in her house, whose one room must function as a bedroom, kitchen and living room. A single steel cupboard is used as a wardrobe for the family’s clothing, and the children’s new school bags lie on the floor beneath a green plastic chair.


Lakshmi works at a factory that assembles parts for scooters and mopeds, and is paid a monthly wage of Rs2,000 (Dh150).

“From getting the children ready for school, to working, cooking in the evening and sorting out their homework, it’s exhausting. I wish he was here,” she says of her husband as the children run around their empty yard and play with an adopted mongrel called Tiger.

Lakshmi watches proudly as Bharani rushes into the front door and displays her newly acquired English skills. Her school, which is a 15-minute bus ride away from their village, has sparked a fascination with the English language that spills into the family home; the siblings now insist on watching Western cartoons on television.


“It’s true that the only reason we can afford to pay for her and Mohan’s education in a private school is because Vinayagam earns in Dubai,” she says. “But only time will tell if it’s worth the separation,” she adds after a long pause.

With two daughters and a young son, Lakshmi says her greatest fear comes at night, when inebriated men sometimes walk by her home.

“Nothing has happened. But not having a man in the house is an unsafe scenario and I am scared for my older daughter, especially if she goes out alone,” Lakshmi says of 13-year-old Neela. “I would rather have Vinayagam back and live on the little we can earn,” she adds firmly.

When he hears Lakshmi’s comments, KV Shamsudheen is pleasantly surprised. The chairman of the UAE–based Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust, an organisation dedicated to assisting troubled lower- and middle-income non-resident Indians (NRIs), Mr Shamsudheen is well known for the financial planning and guidance seminars he holds in the Gulf region and India for unskilled NRIs and their dependents.

“I’m heartened to know there are some families who are still emotionally attached to their men,” he says upon his return from a recent trip to India, where he conducted five workshops for the dependents of NRIs in Kerala’s Chavakkad and Thirur districts.

Mr Shamsudheen has thus far conducted 170 such workshops, and is fully aware of the enormous financial gains Indian families enjoy by sending their men abroad to work. His worry is what is done with the money, and his goal is to prevent those working abroad from becoming victims of unrealistic demands and expectations.

“There is no doubt that thousands of families have raised their standard of living through their Gulf workers. Better homes, better education, better food and ultimately a better life,” he says. “But, my only concern is in two aspects. The first is, can they sustain the standard of living they are accustomed to when the Gulf earner returns to India? The second is, do the families know of the men’s hardships?”

Mr Shamsudheen’s new mission of directly addressing dependents in India – and bringing about a change in the consumer culture that prevails because of an assumption that the workers are nothing but money machines – seems to be paying off.

Over the summer he reached out to more than 300 families through his India-based workshops. The majority of the attendees were women, and most of them told Mr Shamsudheen that their husbands or sons in the Gulf had instructed them to attend his presentation. Although the women listened intently at the sessions, he was disappointed at their overall lack of curiosity about the lives and lifestyles of their husbands and sons overseas.

“As long as the gold and the electronics come in, many of the families I speak with don’t seem to care if their breadwinners sleep or eat. And the demands of Indian society are often very unreasonable, particularly when it comes to spending during festivals and celebrations,” he says.

Indian weddings, for example, are extravagant episodes even for the poor, whose lives and savings are affected by the pressures of hosting a wedding feast for hundreds of guests. Jewellery, trousseau and dowry expenses vary from one community to another, but largely remain a core fixture of nuptials. In addition, most Indians adhere to tradition and observe many festivals throughout the year and partake in rituals and ceremonies that celebrate births, mourn deaths and mark the milestones in between. And all of this takes – you guessed it – money.


It was the astronomical debt resulting from a sister’s wedding that prompted an 18-year-old Saravanan Vedhagiri to apply for a position in Dubai’s growing hospitality sector in 2004. The monthly salary of Rs3,000 (Dhs230) he was earning in India as the caretaker of a corporate guesthouse could have never repaid the Rs200,000 (Dhs15,100) loan the family took out to pay for the event.

“My father was in between jobs and there was no steady income other than mine. I also had a younger brother, and we had to find a way out to repay the loan,” he says.

Mr Vedhagiri, who like Vinayagam is also from Tamil Nadu, says that he was the first man from his small village of 600 to seek work abroad. Most of the other families in Nemendham are landowners who grow rice in the surrounding area on land they own, but Mr Vedhagiri’s family’s sole asset is a two-room house on a plot measuring 1,200 sq ft.

“Our kitchen used to be outside,” he says with a coy smile.

Through the network of a benefactor, he found a job in Dubai with the Grand Hyatt’s housekeeping department. “I was fortunate in that I didn’t have to pay any agent fee,” he says.

Thinking of the future, Mr Vedhagiri decided to skip the trip home he was entitled to after a year on the job and instead began cross-training in the hotel’s food and beverage department. After two years in housekeeping, Mr Vedhagiri began work as a waiter in the hotel’s café, Panini, where he worked for 18 months. The 24-year-old now works as a senior waiter in the hotel’s Al Nakheel Lounge.

Though he is uncomfortable discussing the specifics of his salary, Mr Vedhagiri proudly reels off his family’s acquisitions since the dirhams started pouring in. Although he does not send home a fixed amount each month, the family takes comfort in the security of his presence in Dubai and has been able to make improvements to their home that would otherwise remain a distant dream.

“The wedding debt was cleared in two years, and the family home has been extended to include a kitchen inside,” he says. “We’ve also renovated the bathroom and tiled the floors. I bought my father a moped worth Rs45,000 (Dhs3,400), lent my parents Rs200,000 (Dhs15,100) a year ago, and also invested in land worth Rs300,000 (Dhs22,600).

“I came away at a young age, and being single, I don’t face the same issues as a separated married man,” Mr Vedhagiri says. “Of course, I feel homesick, especially when I’m unwell, but working in Dubai in a 5-star hotel has had more than financial benefits.”

For example, if and when Mr Vedhagiri, who has never been to university, wishes to return to India, the experience he has gained working in a 5-star hotel will likely push his CV to the top of a prospective employer’s candidate file.

“I really think I have one of the best-case scenarios in terms of my job and living situation,” he says.

He now visits his family on an annual basis, staying in the home he has furnished with a DVD player, television and ceiling fans. His next goal is to install an air conditioner in the living room, which he believes will be a first for Nemendham.

Asked if he feels any undue financial pressure from his relatives, Mr Vedhagiri answers quickly. “I’ve heard stories from my friends about extremely demanding families. Although mine isn’t unreasonable, the financial and material expectations rise with every year that I work here,” he says tactfully.

Like most employees in the UAE hospitality sector, Mr Vedhagiri does not have to pay for accommodation or the majority of his meals. His salary is deposited into a Dubai bank and he sends home bulk amounts of money only when it is asked for, which he says is usually once a quarter.

“I don’t question the need, the amount or ask for the details on the spending,” he says flatly.

According to Mr Shamsudheen, a lack of communication and accountability between UAE-based breadwinners and their families back home are the main reasons for the financial misery many NRIs encounter.

“If you advise the men to ask their families to rein in the expenses, they are unable to,” says Mr Shamsudheen. Money, as he has observed, serves an appeasing role, and many of the workers he has advised use it to make up for their physical absence.

“It’s the paradox of sacrificing one person to save five. And we can debate it endlessly,” he says.

The key to surviving separation from one’s family, according to Dubai-based 22-year-old Om Prakash Menaria, a cook from the Udaipur district in Rajasthan, is to ensure that wives have the support of an extended family and that male workers in the Gulf have ample opportunity to socialise with others hailing from their villages or communities. Mr Menaria, who has worked for an Indian family in Dubai since moving to the emirate in 2006, insists on living with distant cousins in Bur Dubai.

His family owns 25 acres of land in Rajasthan, on which they grow pulse grains, which are sold to a fixed-price government outlet in Udaipur. Two years ago they achieved what he calls a “bumper crop” of 100 quintals that brought in about Rs100,000 (Dhs7,550). However, it was a rare year of agricultural celebration, as monsoons – and consequently, harvests – remain unpredictable. He is concerned about this year’s yield, as his state government recently declared a drought in 26 districts, including Udaipur.

“I moved to Dubai because there were no opportunities in Udaipur,” he explains. Mr Menaria is a high-school graduate, but says he has friends with undergraduate degrees who cannot find jobs in India.

In Rundera, his home village, and the surrounding region, families whose primary breadwinners are based in the UAE live in brick homes with brightly coloured exteriors, iron gates and modern amenities such as indoor toilets, a television set in every room and more mobile phones than family members; people forced to get by without such largesse live in homes that are are grey and bleak.

After a feast in the family home during a visit to Rundera last year, Mr Menaria explains the changes brought about through his Dubai earnings. “We’ve added a hall, an extra room and two toilets that are built Dubai-style,” he says, opening the bathroom door and revealing a western-style commode that has replaced their traditional hole-in-the-ground arrangement.

“Our community is referred to as the “Maharaj”, and the men who move out take up jobs as cooks in vegetarian families mostly from the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan,” he explains when asked how he ended up as a cook with a Gujarati family in Dubai.

He was sponsored by the family to work for a monthly salary of Dh1,000 and accommodation. Mr Menaria doesn’t have a bank account, but normally sends about Rs40,000 (Dhs3,000) to his family in India – his parents and wife, a grandfather, two younger brothers and a 11-month-old daughter – every four months. Sometimes, though, he is called uposn to send money for special occasions or emergencies.

“Our community spends a lot on rituals and festivities,” he says. “Even when there’s a death, we have to feed the entire village as part of the funeral rituals,” he explains, adding that such expenses can cost as much as Rs100,000 (Dhs7,540).

Earlier this year Mr Menaria decided to get a driver’s licence in a bid to move away from household chores and responsibilities and work for a private company. He spent Dh4,500 and passed the driving test on his third attempt. Since then he has been driving his sponsor’s car and now earns Dh2,000 a month.

When asked if he could pass the “Shamsudheen Test” and maintain his family’s current lifestyle should he have to return home, Mr Menaria responds without missing a beat.

“No. There will be cost cuts across every level. We now have six mobile phones and a landline. I will have to get rid of five phones. Out of three television sets, two will go. We also have a car, which we will not be able to maintain and fill up with petrol. And most importantly, I certainly can’t think of saving for my daughter’s education.”

Maintaining the family’s existing standard of living costs about Rs10,000 (Dhs750) every month, which he says would be inconceivable if there was no “Gulf worker” to fund it.

Mr Shamsudheen nods all too knowingly when asked about the scenario of drastic downsizing when the dirhams start dwindling, and has been endeavouring to create a culture of saving among the dependent families. He is spurred by the results of a 2002 survey conducted by his organisation that revealed that only 2 per cent of lower- and middle-class Indian families save a portion of their remittance money. As a result, when primary breadwinners retire and return to their native towns and villages the financial impact can be devastating.

“Families have to learn how to take smart decisions, such as spending less on clothes that will never be worn again, trimming guest lists and compulsorily putting away funds for a rainy day,” he says. “All of these unsung heroes sweat and bleed for their families. They avoid the Dh1 tea so that their son can buy a Rs10 Pepsi. I’ve seen so many instances of self-sacrifice and every time the excuse is: Let the family be happy,” he says.

However, families such as Vinayagam’s, whose situations have greatly improved by his moving to the Gulf, are caught in a quandary of living through long-distance relationships to achieve long-term aspirations.

“When I ask Vinayagam about his daily life, he asks to speak with the children,” says his wife, Lakshmi. “I know it’s not easy on him. And it’s not easy on me. But I believe our children will have an easier life when they grow up and I only hope they realise the sacrifices of their parents, especially their father.”