The Borders
Prologue: Einstein in Dubai is not happening in the actual Dubai of the real world you are in now. (Though the real world varies with people’s perceptions.) This story takes place in a parallel world, where some place names and incidents are similar to the real world. And because this is a parallel world, many magical things happen here that are unusual in the real world.
This morning, Einstein woke up in bed. He was surprised because he had suddenly found himself somewhere else in the world. He had always been afraid of experiencing something like this—what if he closed his eyes for two minutes just for fun, and the world around him changed suddenly? What if he was moved to a new region or world without any trace?
It was morning. A big supermarket filled with many people. Einstein had been sleeping on the top floor, and now he woke up and looked down. He could see everyone through the glass walls of his room. The strangers staying on his floor came to him and said, “Hey Einstein, you’re late today! Come fast, a lot of work is pending.”
Even though he couldn’t understand anything, Einstein freshened up and followed these strangers to the hypermarket floor below. The only thing he could do now was listen to these people and try to follow them—to understand what had happened to him. Where was he? How did he get here? Who were these people? How did they know him? The answers to all these questions were not in Einstein’s hands.
Meanwhile, the hypermarket staff gave him a very tasty breakfast. He didn’t know what to do, but all his colleagues were looking at him as if wondering, Why is he behaving strangely today?
For an hour, Einstein remained in shock over the strange thing that had happened to him. And logically, it was understandable—it would be very hard for anyone to process waking up in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unknown people, with no idea of what had happened to them or what was going to happen next.
The few things he knew for certain were that they provided him with food, they cared for him, and they all seemed to like him. Einstein assessed the situation and thought, Why do these people like dumb losers like me?
But gradually, after an hour, Einstein began to believe he belonged to this place. After all, who wouldn’t want to stay in a place that offers love and care, even if it could be delusional? Now, he felt as if he had known these people for a long time. He started to believe this place had been familiar to him since childhood. The river inside his heart slowly flowed into a new sea.
Now, let’s go back two years—to Nepal. A young man named Bijay lived there. Due to financial struggles, many young Nepalese were moving to countries like Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and the UAE. Bijay’s mother borrowed money from relatives and sent him to the UAE. He attended a hypermarket interview from Nepal, got selected, and the company took money from his mother before arranging for his visa. The hypermarket was named Ibn Battuta Hypermarket, UAE.
Leaving Nepal was difficult for Bijay. Like other young men in the region, he knew he would become an immigrant trapped in that cycle. But the prestige given by his villagers to people flying on an airplane and taking pictures in front of famous landmarks in foreign countries was like a drug to him, as it was for many Nepalese youngsters. So he chose to leave. And another most heartbreaking part was leaving his girlfriend, though their story had already ended before he chose the UAE. He believed she might have found a new lover by now. Still, he carried some of her memories with him to Ibn Battuta Hypermarket. Now, he had almost completed two years in the UAE, working for the same company. Though his personal life hadn’t changed much, he felt proud of being able to send money to his parents every month.
Today, his supervisor assigned him a task: to teach a new recruit. The new recruit’s name was Einstein.
So Bijay went to the office room with the new joinee. During the training session, Bijay tried to motivate him, making him feel energetic. And it worked. Bijay used lines like, “I observed your work—you’re a good man,” and “The supervisor spoke highly of you.”
With his long experience, Bijay had learned this trick—appreciate people, give them more work, and they will do it.
The little smile that appeared on Einstein’s face during this appreciation was when Bijay realized Einstein’s weakness: his narcissism.
After spending half an hour together, they started discussing personal matters. Since they were in the same position and same age group, it was important for them to bond a little to work better together. The conversation turned toward Bijay’s relationship life.
Einstein asked, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
As a narcissist, Einstein asked this same question to everyone, giving them a little personal space. If they said yes, he wouldn’t encourage the conversation. But if they said no, that’s when Einstein’s philosophy would emerge from nowhere in the universe, like a stream of logical life theories.
Einstein believed that everyone in this world falls in love during their teenage years. Some extroverts express it and make it work, while the rest keep it as an unspoken hole in their hearts. And through those holes, if someone learns their stories, they can enter their world.
Another important finding was that if an extrovert’s love life ended tragically, the holes in their hearts would be bigger than a public well. That’s why we never had to ask for their stories—if he spent more than ten minutes with them, they would start telling their stories on their own without any compelling them.
After understanding this pattern, Einstein thought of himself as a social media platform—casually gathering people’s very personal information and using it to influence them. When he touched their wounds, they became weak.
But one thing was true in this world—if someone hadn’t gone through the same pain, they wouldn’t be able to understand other people’s emotions. they can’t use this information as Einstein uses. So, Maybe Einstein had experienced heartbreaking events in his own life. Maybe that’s why he asked about people’s pain. Maybe he was trying to help them release their pain by talking to him. Maybe he wanted to be that one listener for those who had no one else to talk to. Maybe he didn’t want others to suffer as he had.
But I believe everyone has two faces. I don’t fully understand Einstein or anyone else in this story. I was just observing them. Sometimes, I don’t know how to judge.
Anyway, Einstein came to know about Bijay’s story.His girlfriend had left him and moved to Australia. So Einstein understood that he had to use the word Australia carefully with Bijay. It now carried a very important emotion in Bijay’s heart, as well as between them.
Bhim
“Where is that Nepali guy who knows everything about pants?” a Pakistani customer asked Einstein.
“No bhayya, he is Indian, actually from Sikkim. His name is Bhim. But he speaks Nepali,” Einstein replied.
Bhim was one of the cleverest men working in the clothing department, someone Einstein met in Dubai. He was unmarried, never flirted with women at the hypermarket, and often disappeared into the corners. But when Einstein spoke to him, he realized that Bhim was good at English. His native tongue was Sikkimese, neither Hindi nor Nepali.
India was a country of diverse languages. Einstein’s home state, Kerala, had Malayalam as its official language. However, his own community spoke an indigenous dialect called Kadapura Pasa—a mix of Malayalam and Tamil. Similarly, Sikkim had its own distinct linguistic identity, but people from other parts of India often assumed that everyone from the northeast spoke Hindi or Bengali.
The first time Einstein met Bhim, he casually asked, “Which part of Nepal are you from?” It was a habit of his; whenever he met someone who looked Nepali, he would ask this question to break the ice. He would even add, “From Kathmandu?” before they had a chance to answer. It made people think he knew something about Nepal, making conversations easier.
But Bhim’s response was different. “Hey, I am not from Nepal. I am from India.”
A Nepali colleague standing nearby laughed and joked, “No, Einstein, he is Nepali. He speaks Nepali.”
Bhim’s voice lowered. “Einstein, I am from Sikkim, India, man!”
Einstein quickly tried to support him. “Yes, I know, man. It’s a northeastern state. I have friends in Assam and Nagaland.”, as he thinks Assam and Nagaland were two nearby villages to Sikkim.
Sikkim was a state actually surrounded by three countries; And surprisingly India is not one of them. Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan are those countries completely surrounded by Sikkim. After this lock we have to travel a lot to reach the other north eastern states of India called Nagaland and Assam. Though Einstein and Bhim are Indians , Bhim was very close with people from nearby countries like Nepalies and Bangladeshis and Bhutanese. Even the Company arranged accommodation for Bhim with his Nepal colleagues, not Indian colleagues.
Despite his intelligence and adaptability, Bhim often felt a sense of isolation. Nepali colleagues didn’t see him as one of them when discussing national matters or job opportunities in Nepal. At the same time, most Indians didn’t recognize his Mongoloid features as Indian. He existed in an in-between space, neither fully here nor there.
One day, Einstein and Bhim watched a web series together. It was about a North Indian cop traveling to Nagaland to solve a murder case. Since the show was in English, they both understood it well. It became a shared interest, something that they can discuss together.
As Einstein observed Bhim’s struggle with identity, he began to reflect on his own. Though his state had Malayalam as its official language, his coastal village spoke Kadapura Pasa, which was barely understood outside its tiny borders. Whenever he left his hometown, people either ignored or dismissed his dialect, pushing him back into that small world. And now, here was Bhim, a man from a northeastern state, reminding Einstein of his own silent struggle.
So he realized the shared emotions that transcended national borders, as well as the silent exclusions created by the very idea of nations.
That evening, Einstein recalled a story a French woman once told him. She was from Lyon, a city historically looked down upon by Parisians. The best meat cuts always went to Paris, while Lyon was left with the scraps. But instead of lamenting, Lyon’s people turned these scraps into unique delicacies, making the city famous for its cuisine.
Einstein thought about his mother’s cooking. She made a dish called Nodha and Kilang (beef liver and tapioca), a poor man’s delicacy. While beef was expensive, liver was cheaper. So his father buys liver mostly in sundays. But the kids found it tastier than actual beef. In his childhood, he and his siblings would fight over who got the biggest portion. Unlike beef, which sometimes remained in the fridge for another day, Nodha was always finished on the same night. He realized that, like Lyon, his village had turned scarcity into something special, but it was not just noticed by anyone.
Women often left the deepest marks on a man’s life. Perhaps it was because women were powerful, or perhaps men secretly longed for women to bear witness to their lives. Einstein always gets into confusion on this thing. But one thing he was sure about was, men always noticed what a woman is doing in their life , or what they say to them.
One day, Bhim shared a story about a woman who had once made a small but profound impact on him. Despite being reserved about his personal life, Bhim felt compelled to tell Einstein about her.
“Einstein, you know, when I was a kid, I studied in a convent school. There was a nun—she was from Kerala. She was very kind to me. One day, she cut my hair. She told me, ‘You don’t have to pay a barber. I will cut your hair.’ I don’t know where she is now.”
Einstein smiled. “These nuns are good people. I remember when I was a kid—”
When Einstein came up with his matching story, Bhim was silent and thinking about something else.
But As Einstein walked home that evening, he reflected on Bhim’s story. Who, indeed, would cut your hair other than a barber? In his whole life no one cuts his hair. Never ever a woman Even as a barber. In fact Due to hair fall, nowadays he himself is the one cutting and trimming his own hair. So even barbers’ interactions with his hair are gone.
That night, Einstein wrote in his diary:
“The people who truly love you will cut your hair.”
(To be continued….)
