Nomad from no country

A journey across continents with multiple cultures

You left Sri Lanka as a young lad with $10 in your pocket. Your stories are about your early years in Sri Lanka and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. What was your reason for leaving? As a young man, what were your impressions of Sri Lanka?

I lived in Sri Lanka for 21 years in a home filled with family and extended families. My weekends and school holidays were spent in my grand uncle’s or friends’ homes. Of those 21 years, 4 were spent in a Christian boarding school. I learned to live with a suitcase of clothes at twelve years. I spent only 17 years in my own home. Being away from home was not a big deal. I lived an out-of-body experience at home or somewhere else. So, I was independent.

With Sri Lanka, it’s a story of exit. Many people like me do not talk about the core reasons for exit. For me, it was not about money. At age sixteen, I saw some terrible things in Sri Lanka when rural youth were massacred during a rebellion. It left a horrible experience for me, having grown up with a socialist-minded set of parents. While I loved my family, extended family, and a great set of friends in my teenage years. I yearned to get out and carve my life outside Sri Lanka.

Do not take me wrong, I was attached to my parents and siblings. My father was an extraordinary man who had mastered the craft of raising confident kids, me particularly. I visited my family and my friends as a youth regularly from Dubai. I had a good time, but there were a lot of things that confirmed my storyline that Sri Lanka was a place worth leaving.

A decade and a half later, you moved to Australia. What was the genesis for that decision?

I had established myself in Dubai, married, with three little kids. I was in a management role in technology at a global bank. Life was comfortable. Great pay and many corporate perks. My employer paid for everything. Saying goodbye to Sri Lanka a decade ago was paying off in Dubai.

But Dubai was no place to raise your kids. I wanted them to grow in a free country with equal opportunities. Money and perks would follow me wherever I go. I chose to migrate to Australia, a sunny and free country.

Leaving my well-paying job, I left Dubai with my young family, three kids under six. It was a brave move despite the risk. Choosing lifestyle over money. I had no regrets about saying goodbye to Dubai. I looked forward to the change, dreaming about my young children’s future.

Was it difficult to acclimate to Australia?

Certainly not. There is something extraordinary in the DNA of Australia that says anybody can become an Australian. Does Australia leave people out of that? Yes, the first nation Australians have had many historic disadvantages stemming from 2 years of dispossession. Some first-generation migrants struggle with integration into Australian society and see themselves as outers. I think it is something to do with insecurity and lack of secularity, complex subjects that come with cultures. To only talk of those things and not talk about the remarkable way in which so many migrants have become Australians is to miss that important part of the story.

I did not feel left out of Australia. I did not feel Australia was not mine. I managed to find a version of myself, more confident and complete with my soul in this country. I always felt that.

When I go to other countries and people ask me where I’m from and I say “Australia”, some don’t believe me. Here, very few ask me where I am from. I live in a cosmopolitan set-up, professionally and personally. Some Sri Lankan migrants here think I am too Australian. Whenever I visit in Sri Lanka, it blows people’s minds that I struggle with my Sri Lankan identity. Whenever I speak Sri Lankan, I use words spoken in the seventies, which is no longer in use. For them, I sound a bit weird.

I do not know my own identity anymore. I am a mash-up of Sri Lanka, Dubai and Australia, where I have spent most of my adult life. It is not so with my kids. They are Australians in and out. I am so proud of that. I am immensely grateful for Australia.

You have had lots of experiences in Dubai. What were they like?

I was a young lad, out to discover the world. I worked for a British Bank with many team members from diverse countries. The management was British. Most of my co-workers were from the Asian subcontinent, Indians, Pakistanis and my old countrymen, Sri Lankans. I was influenced both by the Indians and the British. I read English and Indian magazines. I adopted many Indian lifestyles, ate their food and watched Hindi movies. I was kindly embraced by an Indian family who treated me like one of their sons. Even today, I can cook Indian dishes better than Sri Lankan dishes. When I left Dubai, my vocabulary was different, influenced by Indian English and English English — a mixed bag of cultures and habits, a blessing.

Places where I chose to move and live greatly impacted my outlook. When I spent time in Dubai, in another land in complete contrast to Sri Lanka, among the people that do things differently than me, it made my world look new. My brain worked harder. The time I was lucky enough to spend living in Dubai in my early twenties changed my life. A decade or so later, adjusting to Australia was made easy.

What do you feel now that your third generation is emerging in Australia?

I chased the frontier of my future and landed here. I am immensely grateful to see my young grandkids growing up in Australia. My kids and grandkids are living their life, nomads on their own, doing what they like and living their dreams. I wish my parents, particularly my father, who is no more, were living today (a sheer impossibility) to see my grandkids. I am sure he would have been thrilled. I am grateful that he prepared me for a borderless future and made me a global citizen and a nomad.

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The artwork belongs to the author.