Some might be loyal to the ground they were born on, the flags they might have grown up marching under. But there are others who can only be loyal only to hungers that reside in the blood circulating in their muscles, and the distances they have to traverse chasing routes to satiate them, in these centuries of displacements, uprooting-s, and vanishing rivers (which one can't step into twice even if one so desires).

I am one of these latter tribes, the tribe of migrants, as are these other human beings^[1] (from the makeshift pieces of luggage they carry, coming in from the deserts of Arabia) here in this room before the officers of law waiting to step across a line into a country (I think of countries as door frames with names across the top lintel, planted on empty fields of this planet), which they hope is still home.

[1] Later when I mentioned this to my father, he mentioned a front page article that he had read in "The Hindu", which detailed the travails of a recent wave of "illegal immigrants" - poor people essentially, with minimal education ("Hydrabad" was a common mis-spelling, I noticed, on the labels they had stuck on various items of luggage; some were too poor to own suitcases I suppose since they were carrying blankets converted into sacks), chasing dinar dreams, doing the dirty and dangerous jobs that locals are loathe to do - summarily kicked out from UAE. And the scene this morning did look like this as I deplaned and walked out of the airport here in "Hydrabad".