The Return of the Expats

Many have spoken about the return of the NRIs to start businesses in India but few have shown interest in the return of expats from the middle-east who have been in blue-collar jobs for years over there. It was just another usual day and I had booked a cab using an app and the driver was very courteous. I struck a conversation with him to understand the perks offered by these online cab aggregators to the drivers. He started by saying he had joined the company only a day before and I was his first customer.

He has been in the arabs as a driver for over a decade and he had come home for an extended vacation. He was planning to return in a couple of months when a friend recommended the new-age cab aggregators in India. Within a day, he had his police verification done and joined the fleet of one such operator. The chat with him was an eye-opener to me. For decades, many young Indians who couldn’t find a job here have sailed away to the middle east and other countries to work as drivers, electricians, plumbers and in a variety of similar professions on contractual basis. The pay is good although the living conditions, contractual obligations like the requirements to stay abroad for a couple of years before they could return have been a pain-point for many who sailed away with the hope of providing to their families. Add to this the political crisis in the arabs in the last few years like the recent Yemen crisis, very few want to sail now.

The boom of startups couldn’t have come at a better time. With the millions of VC money, startups are splurging on drivers, delivery boys, etc to get them on their platform. The salaries have seen a huge rise due to the high attrition caused by many alternate opportunities. Not just the expats, but also the prospective sailors are preferring to stay back home.

After all, the change observed at the ground is what gives every entrepreneur the ‘high’ of being an entrepreneur. The change couldn’t be explained better than the rise of livelihoods of many a blue-collar worker.

Indian 'Game of Thrones'

We are in the middle of another season of the american fantasy drama Game of Thrones,that has gained attraction from across the globe with its raw depiction of power and politics. Many have likened it to the great Indian epic ‘Mahabharata’ but few have thought about the ‘Delhi Sultanate’ in a similar way, that saw five dynasties before the Persian dragon dynasty ‘Mughals’ overtook them all. Mostly because all the five kingdoms weren’t contemporaries and there was no ‘Iron Throne’ or the ‘Throne of Hastinapur’ at the Delhi Sultanate before the Mughals who had ‘Peacock Throne’ to ornate their durbar. But one interesting factor is that it is a true story recorded by historians and proved by hard evidence and not a fantasy fiction or epic.

The Delhi Sultanate witnessed the rise and fall of five kingdoms within a span of 300 years, the shortest of them being the ‘Khilji’ and ‘Sayyid’ dynasties that lasted for less than half a century. But within the three centuries, the demography of the sub-continent changed drastically that many have called the ‘Biggest Holocaust in Human history’ that hadn’t changed much in the previous millennium.

Also the 3 centuries saw the pivot of power move to Delhi and many a monuments today owe their existence to these five dynasties. Similar to Game of Thrones, the history of Delhi Sultanate is filled with assassinations within family for power and people without lineage or wealth raise to the corridors of power with mere force and playing the right chords to the right people.

Another similarity is that like the ‘King of Seven Kingdoms’ couldn’t exist in power without the support of the seven powerful families and their large list ofvassals, the course of Delhi Sultanate was channelled by the Turkic, Afghan and Persian amirs.

Maybe 1 or 2 seasons later, we can draw similarity between their ends too. Till then, go and catch up with the latest episode ‘Kill the Boy’-like you need to mention a death in the title, isn’t that a practice in every episode..:P