Two weeks ago, I boarded a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur, to travel to my hometown of Amritsar. I found myself seated next to a couple of young Punjabi men. We exchanged greetings in Punjabi as we settled into our seats but didn’t speak much afterwards.
Almost halfway through the six-hour flight, I saw the guy seated next to me look around in anticipation – as if trying to call a flight attendant. He seemed a bit uneasy. I took my earphones out, paused the video I was watching on my phone and checked with him about his welfare.
“I need some water to swallow my medication”, he responded in Punjabi. I offered him my water bottle. He gulped down a couple of tablets and thanked me. As I was about to get back to my video, he initiated a conversation with me in Punjabi.
Through my chat with him, I learnt that he (and his companion sitting next to him) had been deported from Malaysia for overstaying their ‘visitor’ visa and had been boarded on this flight back to their home country. I got curious about the details of his ordeal.
“Veerji (brother), the agents send us to Malaysia saying we can stay and find work here and earn money. There is no work in Malaysia. We were made to work like dogs, and were often underpaid. They took away our passports so we couldn’t return home”, he told me.
“You end up overstaying your visitor visa and then you live in the constant fear of being caught by immigration authorities”, he carried on. “Someone reported my workplace and we were all detained by immigration. They sentenced us to three months of imprisonment, took away all our valuables, and cash. After the prison sentence we were detained in an immigration camp”.
“Did you not contact the agent who helped you get to Malaysia?” I queried. “Veerji, they just want our money, not be seen after that” he said with a look of despair and disgust.
Source: Suhyeon Choi on Unsplash
“In the immigration camp, we were treated like cattle, 70-80 of us (mostly Punjabi youth) cramped in a room. Food was provided once a day and we were only let out in the open for an hour once a day. No medications provided if we got sick. Very inhumane conditions Veerji”, he continued narrating his ordeal.
“The Indian High Commission seldom visits the detainees so there is little chance of any diplomatic help to free us. We keep smuggling out phone numbers of our families in India each time someone leaves the camp, hoping that they will get in touch with our family members and they can send us a return ticket home. That is how I managed to get the ticket for this flight”, he said and plucked out a piece of paper from his pocket to show me.
The paper had phone numbers written by his fellow detainees of their families. He told me that as soon as he got home, he was going to ring them all to inform them that their wards are in detention and to send them tickets to get back home.
“So, what are your plans when you reach home?”, I asked him just before we landed in Amritsar. “Veerji, I will do anything here in India but will never go back again”, were his parting words.
A week went by and I was back at Amritsar airport, ready to board my return flight to Kuala Lumpur. As I checked in my luggage and proceeded to the immigration counter, I could make out that the majority of my co-passengers were young Punjabi guys (and a handful of young girls), keen on leaving Punjab in search of greener pastures. Majority of them would have been moderately to poorly educated and seemed a bit lost in that immigration queue. They avoided eye contact with others as they inched their way to the immigration desk, hoping not to be questioned too sternly about the purpose and duration of their visits. A well-meaning immigration official on duty did advise a few of them to be very careful and not to overstay their visas – they all kept their heads down and kept moving through the queue without saying much.
Pilgrims at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India. Source: Photo by Kit Suman on Unsplash
You do not need to be a political or socio-economic expert to realise that modern day Punjab is in a bad way. The once affluent State has been crippled over the years through bad policy and bad governance. Agriculture and farming is reeling under severe debt and financial stress, industry is almost non-existent, drugs have swept through eradicating and incapacitating a generation and half, unemployment is rampant, and people feel unsafe.
Therefore, it’s not at all amusing that youngsters are lining up in embassies, hoping and willing to get to affluent shores and make a living for themselves. They are all happy to pay sizeable amounts of money for this exodus. It's sad though that a number of these youngsters are being misguided (and duped) into travelling on visas that do not provide them the adequate work rights in overseas countries.
The ground crew announced that boarding for our flight will commence shortly.
Source: Unsplash
“What is the need for all you young people to leave Punjab?”, an elderly gentleman asked a group of these youngsters sitting next to me.
“Uncleji, if any of our governments would have done the right thing for the people of Punjab over the years, we wouldn’t have felt the need to go away," back came the reply.
I am a product of migration myself. As a young person, I was a dreamer too, like all these young kids standing in that queue with me. Like me, they are all entitled to dream of a better future for themselves. I am not the one to begrudge these young kids their desire to migrate and have a crack at making a better life for themselves. They all seemed earnest and committed enough to give it a red hot go.
However, standing among them I was reminded of my conversations with the lad on my flight to Amritsar a week earlier and I hoped that most of them had obtained the correct visas for their journeys and that they don’t end up on the wrong side of the law – only to throw away a chance at making a better future for themselves.
Sanam Sharma Source: Supplied
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. They do not reflect the views of SBS Punjabi.
