Conversations with Uber drivers are infrequent in Mumbai as the focus is on the road and the GPS Map. It was a rainy receding monsoon morning when I was watching a CNBC Arabia interview of a former colleague in Muscat on LinkedIn while the volume was turned up. An Uber Driver in a posh salwar and a skull cap, heard Arabic, and asked me in Hindi while smirking, do you understand Arabic, I answered Aiwa, Arabi Maloom? He answered, Zyada Maloom and that triggered an hour-long discursive conversation on Uber riding in Riyadh and Mumbai where he owns two cars in Mumbai investing Saudi Riyal Remittances in recurring income, while he is on a free visa in Riyadh, driving Uber where the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, the PIF. He pays 1500 Saudi Riyals a month to his Kafeel, his sponsor for the Car and pays another three thousand riyals annually for the iqama.

Trained as an Urdu Teacher with a bachelor’s in education from Pune, the Urdu Teacher originally from Allahabad, went to teach in Riyadh a decade back to teach in a private school, and was comfortable until nationalization in Saudi Arabia forced him to become a driver entrepreneur with cars in Riyadh and Mumbai. He spoke about Muslim men looking to the Gulf as a source of employment even now when the economies are recalibrating for the post oil era. He spoke about life as a platform economy ride hailing entreprenuer, and how life is better for a middle-class man in the Gulf. He spoke about supporting his entire extended family with remittances, and that he plans to take his wife, who is also a teacher and his kid to Riyadh and spoke about the money needed for support a family. He spoke about the revolutionary reforms in the Saudi Arabia of Crown Prince MBS and the ‘Dubai-fication’ of Riyadh.

He spoke about his wife’s IPhone 14 being stolen from his car and being distraught with no help from law enforcement when he went to lodge a complaint.

The life of a Khaleeji migrant worker is transnational is feet in two nodes, the homeland, and the host land. The soul and the body are split as well with priorities to support the family and the paucity of economic opportunities for a certain socioeconomic strata and community.

Diasporas are formed when the home itself becomes alienating.