" Bed Space to let ", these words may sound strange for those who do not live in Gulf countries but the gulf expatriates are so familiar with this ad on road sides, in local newspapers, notice boards of shops and supermarkets. Bed space is a term conveniently coined by real estate brokers when the rent rates escalated at alarming rates in Gulf countries a few years ago. It is a 5.5 x 3.5 feet double-story jumbo iron cot ( mind , not double story building) rented out by real estate dealers to accommodate their customers or preys. The monthly rent for a bed space exceeds US$ 250.
In the past a normal size room had four single cots and thus accommodated four persons only but under the " double story " system , they can easily include eight tenants . These tenants are allowed to use the empty spaces under their cots into which they dump their belongings including suite cases they brought with them from their homeland, the bags and other stuff they have purchased to take home. Those who have the very rare and strange habit of reading will have to "store" their books as well under their cots. If the tenant happens to be an ultra modern netizen , add laptops ,CDs ,mobile phones, telephone chargers etc to the inventory. The remaining space which is nothing other than very small holes or gaps on their cots and beds are comfortably inhabited by bugs , the national animal of the gulf-goers which help them get rid of the superfluous blood they have and save them from thrombosis.
These "costly" cots are in the habit of groaning whenever their riders try to move right or left . Even before these tenants start dreaming or resort to reveries, they have to ensure that that persons under or above them does not smell it.
It is in this narrow space where the expatriate life of an average gulf resident buds , flowers, nurtures and expires at the cancellation of his visa. The brokers follow a divide and rent policy whereby they rent flats, divide them into very rooms, furnish them with several beds paces, sublets them to their customers , lives in their own rent free bed spaces and save some money at home. Among such investors are Keralites who should constitute a part of the curricula of MBA graduates of these days.
The tenants of these bed spaces always enjoy everlasting spring since they remain bachelors regardless of whether they are married, have children or not and even when they become grand fathers since the gulf governments and media relish in calling them like that.
Those who draw a little more salary and own neck ties of their own are promoted into executive bachelor status. The fact remains that 65% of those who have the minimum income required for bringing their families to live with them in the gulf are” family status-less” expatriates since they cannot afford to support their families after bringing them a matter the self financing institution administrators should consider while fixing NRE quota . In the Malayalm movie " Pulivaal Kallyanam" when the gulf character played by Salim Kumar jokes saying “ my father is a bachelor and my grand father a chronic bachelor” it would have a serious connotation had he meant the so called gulf bachelors . It is not known if the screen play writer had these bachelors in his mind while writing this dialogue.
By the Son in Law
