Are Indian Workers in the Middle East Living a Dream or a Nightmare

March 28, 2024

By Cherian Samuel*

Aadujeevitham (The GoatLife), a Malayalam movie in the making for 16 years, was released globally today. The film, based on a true story, portrays the hard life of migrants from Kerala, who work as laborers in the Middle East, to support their family.

Najeeb Muhammad worked as a sandminer in Arattupuzha, Alappuzha District, Kerala in the late 1980s. Similar to other laborers in the state, he earned around Rs 56 ($5) per day. In 1991 he got married and soon his wife was expecting a child.

Realizing that he could not support his family on his income in Kerala, Najeeb pursued the “Gulf Dream.” Like millions of others from Kerala, and other parts of India, he sought a much higher paying job in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East.

In 1992, he sold five cents of land (0.05 acre) owned by his family and raised Rs 55,000 ($5,000) needed to pay an employment agent in Kerala. The agent told Najeeb that he would be working as a salesman at a supermarket in Saudi Arabia, earning at least five times more than his annual wage in Kerala.

Najeeb left behind his wife, mother, and an unborn child day dreaming of a good job for 20 years, saving money and returning to Kerala, to live a comfortable retired life.

When he reached Riyadh airport, Saudi Arabia, Najeeb realized he was tricked and recruited to work on a goat, sheep. and camel farm in the desert. It was run by an Arab supervisor employed by a wealthy Saudi farm owner.

Starting April 4, 1992, Najeeb fed the goats, sheep and camels, cleaned their sheds, milked the goats, and did other jobs on the farm. He was forced to work more than 12 hours a day, with few breaks, seven days a week, in heat which reaches 130*F (55*C) in the summer. 

“I was not paid a single rial as salary,” Najeeb told thenewsminute in 2018.

For three years, four months and nine days, Najeeb labors as a slave. He is not given enough food, at times denied water and does not have an extra pair of clothes.

He is cut off from all contacts with his family in Kerala, has no friends and only goats and camels as companions. The only human contact he has is with the cruel supervisor who observes him with binoculars, walks around with a gun and often beats him with a belt. Najeeb cannot leave the job or Saudi Arabia since the supervisor seized his Indian passport.

Najeeb builds a special relationship with the 700 goats he herds, sharing his dreams, desires and hopes with them. He believes that he is no longer a human but a goat – hence the title of the book and film, Aadujeevitham (The GoatLife).

Yet he survives and escapes, with help from a Senegalese migrant, through hope and faith.

The film is directed by Blessy Ipe Thomas, who also wrote the script and is a co-producer. His previous work includes 100 Years of Chrysostom, 2018, a documentary based on the life of Christian prelate Philipose Mar Chrysostom Mar Thoma. It holds the Guinness World Record for the longest documentary, with a runtime of 48 hours and 10 minutes.

Aadujeevitham is an adaptation of a 2008 Malayalam novel of the same name by Benyamin (Benny) Daniel; an English translation Goat Days was published in 2012. He wrote the story while he was working in the Kingdom of Bahrain, also in the Middle East. It is based on his conversations with Najeeb, over 18 months in the early 2000s, when they both worked in Bahrain and became friends. “I knew this was the story I was waiting to tell the world and I knew this had to be told,” Benyamin told The Hindu in 2012.

The book, which has become a classic in Malayalam, is now in its 251st reprint with total sales of over 250,000 copies. This is a major hit given that best-selling books in India typically sell around 10,000 copies. It has been translated into 12 languages. 

Benyamin, 52-years-old, now based in Pathanamthitta, Kerala, has published 24 books, including nine novels, in Malayalam. He earned a diploma in mechanical engineering from a polytechnic in Coimbatore, India. Starting at age 21, he spent more than a decade working in Bahrain, 1992 to 2013. He is the second child of Daniel, a taxi driver, and Ammini, a homemaker.

In 2008, Thomas, 60-years-old, set out to make the film with Prithviraj Sukumaran, a popular Malayalam film actor, in the lead role. But the production costs were high and Thomas had problems raising the funds.

Ten years later, work on the film began only after Jimmy Jean-Louis, of Jet Media Production, and Steven Adams, of Alta Global Media, joined Thomas as producers. The film, which took five years to produce, was shot in the deserts of Wadi Rum, Jordan, and the Sahara, Algeria, with some scenes set in Kerala. Obstacles the film crew overcame included being stranded in the Jordan desert for 70 days, March to May 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

The movie features Prithviraj and Amala Paul in lead roles, with an international cast that includes Jimmy Jean-Louis, from Hollywood, Talib al Balushi, Oman, and Rik Aby, United Arab Emirates. A. R. Rahman composed the music with Resul Pookutty as the sound designer. The duo won an Oscar for their music for Slumdog Millionaire, 2009.

Prithviraj describes his 16-year commitment to the film, which runs 2 hours and 52 minutes, as “an unexpected and unforgettable journey” and as a “testament to the strength of the human spirit.”

A key challenge for him was to gain and lose weight during the production. First Prithviraj had to gain weight to be around 98 kilograms (216 pounds), and develop a pot belly, to portray Najeeb at the time he left Kerala. Then, by the end of the film, the actor had to lose weight, to reach around 67 kilograms (148 pounds), to resemble a hungry, emaciated Najeeb laboring in the Saudi desert.

Prithviraj’s “transformative journey went beyond the realms of conventional acting and evolved into a lived experience. His unique and immersive approach imbued the narrative with an unparalleled depth and authenticity,” Thomas told The Week.

"The kind of torture that I faced in my life is exactly how it is shown in Aadujeevitham,” Najeeb said in an interview with Manorama Online. He added that he cried, recalling his own screaming, when he heard Prithviraj scream in the film.

Kerala, like the other states in India, faces a very high level of unemployment. Kerala has benefited immensely from the remittances sent home by its migrant workers, especially from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.

For years, the Malayalam media has routinely reported on the abuse and exploitation suffered by migrants, especially laborers, in the Middle East countries. Yet, Keralites, finding no jobs or inadequate income in the state, continue to eagerly seek work in those countries. Also, as Benyamin told an interviewer, the prospect of becoming wealthy is overpowering: “most people think that the Gulf (Middle East) is a land of luck.”

Speaking about why he was drawn to writing Aadujeevitham, Benyamin told The Hindu, “Usually, we only hear of stories of success from the Gulf. But I wanted to talk about the many who lead lives of suffering and pain.”

Benyamin Benny Daniel, author Aadujeevitham (The GoatLife)

*Cherian Samuel, a writer based in suburban Washington DC, retired as an evaluator from the World Bank. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland. 

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