Fiction: A teacher from Kerala takes a job in Dubai in the 1990s, but being an immigrant isn’t easy

The day that is a fork in the road for Nita, the one with a switch to a far-out bomb, dawns light and cool. The heat of the last few weeks has broken and the smell of chembakam flowers is in the air. Ani spots a cloud in the sky that looks like a rabbit, points it out to her. The resemblance is uncanny, down to the two symmetrical ears and puffy tail.

Nita used to believe that these moments of shared joy would be a frequent, easy thing between mother and son. But Ani’s and her moods are opposite poles. Nita is often too busy, distracted and irritable when he pulls at her clothes, wanting attention. People might think her son’s name is Ani Stopit, she says it so often.

But this morning they hold hands as they walk to school, searching the sky for a cloud carrot that the cloud rabbit can have for breakfast.

So when she arrives at the employment agency, she is upbeat and more hopeful than usual. But nothing has changed; there are no new openings in town. Most jobs are in construction and at the cashew factories – well-paying unionised work that has been cornered by...

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