When our son Calvin was younger, he would answer the question “Where are you from?” by naming any random country that caught his fancy. My husband and I would grin at our friends’ consternation every time they were met with his ever-changing reply: Russia; Iceland; Sudan; Singapore. But he never said India, his country of citizenship. Or Thailand, his country of birth.
About the time he turned 4, we moved from Bangkok to Muscat, and for months he would tell anyone who cared to listen about our life in the Thai capital, describing in great detail the cosy townhouse we rented; the purple orchids growing in the front yard; the local grocer’s scrappy poodle, Poc-Pac; his best friends and fellow tricycle enthusiasts, Parm and Karn; the hyacinth-choked canal running through the neighbourhood.
“It’s my home,” he would explain earnestly, adding: “We are going back soon.”
We have visited Bangkok almost every year since then, doing all the things Calvin enjoyed when we lived there. We spend a day in Rama IX Park, feeding the enormous, ever-hungry catfish in the lake, and stop all activity at 6pm to stand to attention while the royal anthem pipes through the speakers dotted about the beautiful gardens. We hang out at the National Museum of Royal Barges, watching the artists squint in concentration as they guild the exquisite, brightly painted vessels for the Royal Barge Procession that takes place with pomp and pageantry on the Chao Phraya river. We eat spicy crab at our favourite restaurant, Somboon Seafood, where the waiters never fail to marvel at how tall “nong” (baby) Calvin has grown.
Eleven years later, even as he still pines for Bangkok, Calvin is facing another transfer of residence, having spent the past nine years of his life in the UAE. And this time, he has a different answer to that old question of where home is. “Abu Dhabi,” he says.
And so it is. He has been going to the same school all this time, and still hangs out with the classmates he got to know as a first grader. He spends every minute of his free time on the Corniche, cycling up and down its length with his best buddy, Aditya. And he is known to every staff member of the neighbourhood supermarket, who say a cheery “hi” when he walks in with his mum’s shopping list.
Calvin is already homesick, even though our departure isn’t for some time. I know this because he’s making charcoal sketches of all his favourite buildings – Emirates Palace, Yas Viceroy Hotel, Hyatt Capital Gate, Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. He’s working even harder at learning Arabic, fearful that he will forget the language. And he’s brooding peevishly about whether our new city of residence will have shawarma that equals the offerings of Lebanese Flower. But perhaps most significantly, he has been secretly looking up the price of flights to Abu Dhabi.