''Goat Days'' (original Malayalam title: ''Aadujeevitham'') is a 2008

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

-language novel by Indian author Benyamin. It is about an abused

Malayali The Malayali people () (also spelt Malayalee and also known by the demonym Keralite) are a Dravidian peoples, Dravidian ethnolinguistic group originating from the present-day state of Kerala in India, occupying its southwestern Malabar coast. ...

migrant worker employed in Saudi Arabia as a goatherd against his will. The novel is based on real-life events and was a best seller in

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

. According to media, Benyamin became an "overnight sensation" with the publication of this "hard-hitting story" and is currently one of the top sellers in Malayalam. The original Malayalam version of ''Goat Days'' has gone through over 100 reprints. The novel depicts the life of Najeeb Muhammed, an Indian emigrant going missing in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. Najeeb's dream was to work in the Persian Gulf states and earn enough money to send back home. But, he achieves his dream only to be propelled by a series of incidents into a slavelike existence herding goats in the middle of the Saudi desert. In the end, Najeeb contrives a hazardous scheme to escape his desert prison.

Penguin Books India Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year. The English translation of the novel appeared in the long list of

Man Asian Literary Prize The Man Asian Literary Prize was an annual literary award between 2007 and 2012, given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year. It is awarded to writer ...

2012 and in the short list of the

DSC Prize for South Asian Literature The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is an international literary prize awarded annually to writers of any ethnicity or nationality writing about South AsiaNote: South Asia for the purposes of the prize is defined as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka ...

2013. It also won the Kerala Literary Academy Award for Benyamin in 2009. The book is

banned A ban is a formal or informal prohibition of something. Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some bans in commerce are referred to as embargoes. ''Ban'' is also used as a verb similar in meaning ...

in the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

and

Plot

The book is divided into four parts (Prison, Desert, Escape and Refuge). Najeeb Muhammad, a young man from Arattupuzha in

Haripad Haripad is a Municipality in ''Onattukara'' region of Alappuzha District, Kerala, India located between Alappuzha and Kollam on the National Highway 66. Haripad is bordered on the east by Pallippad, Veeyapuram and Karuvatta to the north ...

of the

state, is newly married and dreams of a better work in any of the

Persian Gulf states The Arab states of the Persian Gulf refers to a group of Arab states which border the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. ...

. After several endeavors, he finally gets an opportunity to work in

. However, at the

King Khalid International Airport King Khalid International Airport ( ar, مطار الملك خالد الدولي ', ) is located north of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, designed by the architectural firm HOK, and Arabian Bechtel Company Limited served as the construction manager o ...

Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the R ...

he is clueless as what to do next and is taken away by an Arab man who he believes to be his

Arbab Arbab ( fa, ارباب) is a Persian word that means "boss", "master" and "landlord" or "one endowed with a special quality". It was a title used by tribal leaders in Middle East and South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia ...

. The Arbab takes him to a cattle farm in the middle of a desert, confirming Najeeb's worst nightmare. The Arbab hands Najeeb over to the farm supervisor. Najeeb is then used as a slave laborer and shepherd and is assigned to tend goats, sheep and camels for almost three and half years in the remote deserts of Saudi Arabia. He is forced to do backbreaking work, kept half-hungry and is denied water to wash and suffers unimaginably. The farm's brutal supervisor keeps Najeeb in control with a gun and binoculars and frequently beats him with a belt. And now Najeeb had to manage this new fate without the bare human essentials. In a country where he doesn't know the language, places or people, he is far away from any human interaction. Najeeb steadily starts to identify himself with the goats. He considers himself as one of them. His dreams, desires, avenges and hopes starts to fade away as his mindset has now become similar to that of the goats. He talks to them, eats with them, sleeps with them and virtually lives the life of a goat. Although he has tried absconding multiple times, the supervisor catches him every time and punishes him by denying him food and water. He stops absconding when he finds the skeleton of the previous shepherd buried in the sand, who he thought had escaped. Even then, he keeps a ray of hope which will bring freedom and end to his sufferings some day. Finally one night with the help of Ibrahim Khadiri, a Somalian worker in the neighboring farm, Najeeb Muhammed and his friend Hakeem escapes from the horrible life to freedom. But, the trio fumbles across the desert for days, and young Hakeem dies of thirst and fatigue. But Ibrahim Khadiri and Najeeb keep moving on and the stumble across an Oasis where they manage to take rest for a few days. In the day they had planned to start moving again, Ibrahim disappears leaving Najeeb alone. Initially devastated, Najeeb somehow manages to find his way to a nearby highway, where after a day of trying, a kind Arab stops for him and rides him to

Al-Bathaa Al-Bateha () is a subject of Baladiyah al-Batha and one of the oldest neighborhoods in southern Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the A ...

. Over there, he meets Kunjikka, a fellow malayali who helps refugees. Kunjikka nurses him back to health and finally calls back to his hometown. Once Najeeb started feeling better, he gets himself arrested by the civil police in order to get deported to India with Hameed, who he had met while being with Kunjikka. Najeeb gets detained in the Sumesi Prison, where arbabs get to visit and take any of the absconded prisoners that worked for them back to their company. Initially Najeeb and Hameed were afraid of their arbabs showing up, but they were detained for months without any issue, until Hameed's arbab appeared and took Hameed away with him. Soon enough, Najeeb's arbab walked in but amazingly he doesn't take Najeeb with him. Relieved, Najeeb thinks that the arbab didn't recognize him until a friendly warden tells him that the arbab didn't have Najeeb's visa, else he would have dragged Najeeb back to the cattle farm. Najeeb realizes that he was kidnapped at the airport and used as a slave, while the visa was for some other job at some other company. In a few weeks, he gets to know that he is being

deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

to India by the Saudi Arabian authorities. Feeling ecstatic he bids his goodbye's to his fellow inmates and as he boards the plane with several deportees, he realizes how everyone is being herded inside the plane like a couple goats and how he has lived a goats life.

Main characters

Najeeb Muhammed ''Goat Days'' (original Malayalam title: ''Aadujeevitham'') is a 2008 Malayalam-language novel by Indian author Benyamin. It is about an abused Malayali migrant worker employed in Saudi Arabia as a goatherd against his will. The novel is base ...

(Prisoner Number 13858 at Sumesi Prison,

), the protagonist of the novel, spent three and half years (4 April 1992 – 13 August 1995) in a remote farm in the Saudi Arabian desert. Originally a sand miner from Arattupuzha in

, he is given the visa by a

Karuvatta Karuvatta is a village in Alappuzha District of Kerala region of India. It lies in between Haripad and Thottappally in Alappuzha, on National Highway 66. Karuvatta has a railway station, and the nearest airports are Trivandrum International ...

-based friend for as a helper in a construction company in

is a real life character. * ''Hakeem'' is a young man, who got trapped under another Arab and lives a life similar to Najeeb. He joins Najeeb to elope from the desert, however, surrenders before death due to hunger and thirst in their perilous journey through the Arabian Desert. * ''Ibrahim Khadiri'' * ''Arab owner'' * ''Hameed'' * ''Kunjikka'' * ''Sainu''

Inspiration

Recounting his meeting with the real-life Najeeb, Benyamin reminisces: :: The reluctant Najeeb who wanted to forget his past had to be coaxed to recount his story.

Translations

The original book was published by Green Books Private Limited,

Thrissur Thrissur (), formerly Trichur, also known by its historical name Thrissivaperur, is a city and the headquarters of the Thrissur district in Kerala, India. It is the third largest urban agglomeration in Kerala after Kochi and Kozhikode, and t ...

on 15 July 2008. The English translation of the novel for Penguin Books was carried out by Joseph Koyippally, a literature professor in the Central University of Kerala. ;Other translations The translations into

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

and

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

are due for release.

Film adaptation

Director

Blessy Blessy Ipe Thomas is an Indian film director and screenwriter who works in Malayalam cinema. He has won one National Film Awards, National Film Award and six Kerala State Film Awards for his feature films ''Kaazhcha'' (2004), ''Thanmathra'' (20 ...

had announced that he would be making a film based on the book, titled '' Aadujeevitham''. However, the author noted, "We are still in the discussion stage. Our plans for a film had to be postponed when we realised that its production cost would not be feasible for a Malayalam film. Now we are planning something on a larger scale and

Prithviraj Sukumaran Prithviraj Sukumaran (born 16 October 1982) is an Indian actor, director, producer and playback singer primarily working in Malayalam cinema. He has also done Tamil, Telugu and Hindi films. He acted in more than 100 films in a variety of rol ...

will play Najeeb's role. " However, in late 2017, Blessy had confirmed the eponymous film adaptation of the book as a

Malayalam film Malayalam cinema is an Indian cinema, Indian film industry of Malayalam-language motion pictures. It is based in Kochi, Kerala, India. The films produced in Malayalam cinema are known for their cinematography and story-driven plots. In 1982, ...

. After months of speculation, in January 2018 composer

A. R. Rahman Allah Rakha Rahman (; born A. S. Dileep Kumar; 6 January 1967) is an Indian music composer, record producer, singer and songwriter, popular for his works in Indian cinema; predominantly in Tamil and Hindi films, with occasional forays in int ...

confirmed in a press conference that he is making a comeback to Malayalam cinema as a composer with the film.

References

External links

''Goat Days''
at

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.''Aadujeevitham Malayalam Book''
at Pusthakam.net website

at arabianewspaper.com Malayalam online news {{Malayalam Literature , state=collapsed Human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia Novels about slavery Malayalam novels 2008 Indian novels Novels set in Saudi Arabia Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award-winning works Articles containing video clips