Arabian Agony: What expats go through in the Gulf

SAUDI ARABIA. Jejo Das went to work in Riyadh as a driver, believing that would secure his future. No such luck. He had to return dejected to India after suffering extreme humiliation. His colleague Soman was physically tortured by his employer for getting his wife's – instead of his – approval for a driving licence. Soman wants to return to India too but is not being allowed to leave. He is his employer's prisoner.

OMAN. Chandra Babu and his family used to live in abject poverty. So Babu left for Saudi Arabia to work as a labourer, hoping for a better future. That did not happen. Disillusioned, he returned home. The next stop was Kuwait from where he returned without a rupee in his pocket. He then went to Oman where his dreams began to come true. While there, he witnessed the pain and struggle of many persecuted Indians and started helping them. One of them was of a housekeeper, Kumari, who had moved to
Oman after being ill-treated by an Indian family in Dubai. But she fared worse in her new job. Unable to bear the brutality of her
Omani employers, she sought refuge at the Indian embassy. Babu helped her raise the money for her return ticket to India.

UAE. GopalRaghavan arrived in Dubai with only dreams and a tattered bag. For a while those dreams remained just that. Then, suddenly, his fortune turned. Today, he is wealthy and contented. ChandyVerghese wasn’t as lucky. A senior journalist working for a newspaper in Sharjah, Chandy went through a harrowing experience at the hands of his new boss, the daughter of the newspaper establishment's chairman, and was forced to return home.

KUWAIT. Sarah, from the Philippines, was taken for a ride by her Kuwait employer. Fortunately she was able to overcame all the impediments in her way. But Rani, from Cuddapah in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, wasn’t as fortunate. Not only was she repeatedly raped by her employer – and his son – but also not paid her salary for months. Rani endured the pain and humiliation for a long time until she managed to flee to a new employer. However misfortune continued to shadow her…

These are real-life expat tales from Arabia…some sour, some sweet.