Once heroes, ex-Gulf workers forge new futures
The Hindu
Kerala is one of the states that sends the most workers to the Gulf, accounting for about 2.5 million of 6 million Indians there.
It is not yet dawn but Yeroor village is long awake, the hum of productivity floating over ‘Gulf Street’, a lush green boulevard named for the thousands of workers who leave Kerala every year for jobs in the Gulf. But now the workers are back, from machine operator Sudheesh Kumar, who has been forced back into manual labour in Yeroor to make ends meet, to former banker Binoj Kuttappan, who has taken up dog breeding in Thiruvananthapuram. In the single biggest reverse migration in more than 50 years, workers from the Gulf have streamed back to Kerala in the past year, propelled by a pandemic that deflated dreams of overseas riches and changing family fortunes.More Related News