Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

Mumbai and then going to Karachi (this was before partition). After partition such
opportunities dwindled but numerous people were still going to Mumbai, and from there,
had the opportunity to go to gulf. During the sixties and early seventies, people started
going to gulf on a larger scale, and there are stories of people going in boats and lounges
(lanchi).Such migrations were simply continuation of the earlier migrations to different
parts of India, and did not return with substantial amounts; mostly they returned with
enough to survive and start small business. There were several who never returned.
People who went to Madras, Bangalore and Mumbai were better off, as they worked in
bakeries, hotels and did business in a wide variety of articles from tender coconut (ilanir)
to betel and areca nut. Some of them were also indulged in contraband trade.
The situation changed substantially after the middle of seventies. The land reforms had
uprooted the old social order. A number of families lost their land holdings, and a number
of others gained them, but soon found that they were unable to make their both ends meet
from heir land holdings. A number of them lingered on , looking around for safe and
remunerative employment, but they either did not have the requisite capabilities or did
not have necessary social or political support to gain jobs The out migrants during the
seventies were the marginalized and rejected, and their migrations corresponded with the
oil crisis and the so-called ‘Gulf boom’. Most of these people went to gulf as menial
laborers, worked as municipal laborers, shop employees, and did other forms of menial
labor, and the luckier among them got the chance to work in the oil fields, .or with
multinational firms or in such establishments as the Gulf Air force. The boom resulted in
the substantial hike in the value of the gulf currency so that even the paltry sum that they
received meant a bonanza for the families that received the remittances. The first
generation, who thus went to gulf in the sixties and seventies, have now returned and the
second generation has gone during the end of the eighties and nineties. They are people,