Memory, Migrant and Modernity 

Modernity for an economic migrant internal/transnational is a mirage, something he tries to achieve while being disadvantaged apriori by starting off afresh. He remains on the edge/peripheral areas of home-adopted lands, which is entangled in memory, alienation and in a perennial endeavour to be the other. This alienation is washed down with some money, which enables him to earn a living. Identify and Actualisation are relegated to the residues of dreams, rather than lived reality. The flights back home and crossing passport controls are rituals connecting the continuum of past to future, with the emergent present a buffering work in progress. For the second generation, like me, attempts to embrace the passport home are wrestling experiences, while chameleon mode on, languages flow, places seem familiar but as the old Arab proverb informs ‘ home is where the next meal is’. Nationalisms are luxuries for a migrant. Long distance expressions of belonging through shares, likes and retweets are construct imaginations of texts, sounds and images. In a volatile world with closed doors, the returnees jostle, with the realities of what was once home, which they left, hoping not to come again. But, politics trumps destiny, but is Home limited by a travel document? Millions struggle as this question lingers, with cancelled work visas and rejected PR’s.