In 2008, the Malayalam writer Benny Daniel, known by the pen name Benyamin, published his first novel “Aadujeevitham.” Later translated into English as “Goat Days,” it punctured the image of the Gulf Dream for many in southern India.
Starting in the 1970s, the southern Indian state of Kerala experienced a “Gulf boom” as people migrated to the region en masse in search of work. In the popular imagination, the “Gulf man,” meaning a Keralite living in one of the Arab states of the Gulf, was someone affluent. The Gulf was a land where people fulfilled their economic aspirations. However, “Goat Days” single-handedly shattered the narrative. Benyamin narrated the story of Najeeb Muhammad, a daily wage worker in Kerala who migrated to Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s in search of greener pastures but ended up in slave-like conditions at a goat farm in the middle of the desert. This marked the first time that a writer had centered the ordeals of migrant laborers in the Gulf in Malayalam literature.
The survival drama became an overnight sensation and a bestseller. The Malayalam original has since had over 100 reprints and been translated into many languages, including Arabic, English, Nepali and various Indian languages. Benyamin won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009, and the translation was nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012 and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature in 2013 — both prestigious honors.
Hailing from the Keralan village of Kulanada, Benyamin lived in Bahrain for over two decades, working as an engineer. He also started his writing career there. “I was very young when I shifted to Bahrain. I would work for eight hours and had the rest 16 hours free, so I started reading. This continued for seven to eight years. I would also write letters to friends, so that’s when I connected with the process of writing,” he told The Indian Express in 2018, when he won the respected JCB Prize for Literature for “Jasmine Days” — a novel inspired by the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia.
Talking about “Goat Days,” he said: “It was an expatriate’s experience, who I met accidentally. I thought I should tell that story because many of us think only about the glory of the Gulf countries but there is another side to that story too — it’s of the sufferings of many. There are happy stories, but there are sad stories too.”
However, the novel’s popularity was limited to literary circles until the acclaimed filmmaker Blessy Ipe Thomas, widely known by the mononym Blessy, adapted it into a film titled “Aadujeevitham — The Goat Life.” The popular actor Prithviraj Sukumaran took the lead role of Muhammad. The much-anticipated film became one of the highest-grossing works in Malayalam cinema upon its release in March. Recently, it won several top honors at the Kerala State Film Awards — the most sought-after in Malayalam cinema — including for best director, best adapted screenplay and best actor.
As the team basked in its success, an unexpected controversy hit the film in the Gulf, where the film is set. The Omani actor Talib Al Balushi has come under fire for his role as the “kafeel” or sponsor, a harsh employer who kept the Indian migrant captive in inhumane conditions and tortured him. Many in Saudi Arabia thought it showed the country in an unfair light and perpetuated stereotypes of Arab people, portraying them as “barbarians.” There were also speculations as to whether Al Balushi was blacklisted from entering Saudi Arabia, and whether the film had been sponsored by other Gulf or Arab countries to undermine Saudi Arabia. The film trended on social media, along with hashtags such as #Expel_Hindu_Workers, #GoatLifeDoesNotRepresentUs and #Saudi_Is_A_RedLine — a patriotic hashtag implying that criticism of Saudi society is misguided.
In the wake of this controversy, Blessy released a statement. He said that “the movie relentlessly tried to highlight the nobleness of human soul even in the heart of a harsh person. … I tried to give this message consistently throughout the movie and never intended to hurt the sentiments of any individual, race, or country.” The filmmaker added that the film tried to “portray the compassion and empathy of the Arab people through the character of the kind gentleman who … rescues Najeeb. … The restaurant staff, the people at the detention center and the Arbab out-pass check post are all portrayed as epitomes of kindness, compassion, and empathy.”
Amid rumors about the film’s sponsors, Blessy reiterated that he directed and wrote the film and that it was produced by Visual Romance, of which he is “the sole owner and shareholder.” “No other individual or company has any involvement, whatsoever, in the production of the movie,” he said.
Al Balushi also stood by the film and his decision to act in it. He told New Lines that he found the script to be professionally written and, as an actor, he sought to grow and try different characters. He said this wasn’t the first time he played such a role and that he has portrayed even more “intense” characters in Omani dramas. Al Balushi said that he anticipated the reaction but relied on the quality of the script to draw attention to the fact that the situation depicted is a unique case. He believes that the negative response has been driven by online trolls trying to stir up conflict between India and the Gulf Arab states.
In a statement released on social media, the Jordanian actor Akef Najem apologized “to the people of Saudi Arabia,” saying that when he agreed to act in the film, he had only read the part of its script pertaining to his own role, which he believed depicted Saudi Arabians in a positive light. “I was surprised as others were when I watched the film,” he said, adding that he would never have taken part in it had he known its full story.
According to a source speaking to New Lines, the Government Communication Center in Oman, an official body under the Ministry of Information responsible for monitoring and analyzing media and social media content, received orders from “higher authorities” earlier this week instructing all private media outlets and private news accounts on social media to refrain from discussing the film and the novel.
The film has initiated an intense discussion in Omani media, with some supporting Al Balushi and others criticizing him. Writing in The Oman Daily, published by the Omani Ministry of Information, the Omani writer and media personality Suleiman Al-Maamari expressed sympathy for Al Balushi and questioned the legitimacy of the criticism, arguing that it was not aimed at the artistic work and performance. However, Al-Maamari told New Lines that he had never before received the number of insults that came his way after publishing the article on X (formerly Twitter).
Badr Al-Abri, a member of the Board of Directors of the Cultural Club in Oman, a governmental institution, argued that the current social media assault targeted not just Al Balushi but Oman itself. “Most Omanis were not aware of the novel initially, nor the film later. Without this uproar, they would not have noticed it on a large scale. So how can all this writing, support, production, direction and filming be ignored, and the uproar be focused solely on Oman? This can only be explained by attempts to create an imaginary conflict between Gulf states,” wrote Al-Abri.
Abdullah Al-Ghathami, a well-known Saudi critic and academic, said on Al Arabiya that he had not watched the film and emphasized that mistakes can occur in any society and that no society is “pure.” But he saw the public reaction to the film as legitimate and a reflection of people’s patriotism. For instance, the prominent Saudi cleric Aaidh Al-Qarni expressed his discontent with the film, pointing to the country’s reputation as a host for Muslim pilgrims and its generosity toward expatriates, describing the filmmakers as envious.
Once a film becomes the subject of intense social media scrutiny, questions are often raised about the veracity of the story. Benyamin has faced these questions before; when “Aadujeevitham” was first released as a novel, he was accused of plagiarism over parts of it, allegations he denied. At the time, questions were also raised about the creative liberties he took while rendering a real-life story.
In Saudi Arabia, the Saudi novelist Abdulrahman Al-Dailij accused the filmmakers of fabricating many events and claimed that he knew the true story as it was widely discussed in local gatherings at the time, in the early 1990s. While neither Benyamin nor the film mentions the names of any places, Al-Dailij claimed that it took place around 30 years ago in the region of Hafar al-Batin, a governorate in northeastern Saudi Arabia, and that the worker stayed with the man who claimed to be his sponsor for five years.
According to a widely circulated story, also told by Al-Dailij, the worker demanded his wages after years of working in slave-like conditions, but the sponsor refused to pay him or to allow him to return to India or even approach the nearest paved road to escape the desert. The worker struck the sponsor with a piece of iron, killing him before fleeing. The story of the murder would become the talk of the region, and locals would sympathize with the arrested worker and collect donations before approaching the family of the murdered sponsor to forgive the Indian worker. The sponsor’s children, once they realized their late father was in the wrong, refused to accept the money, forfeited their right to retribution and asked for the large sum (170,000 Saudi riyals, or $45,000) to be given instead to the Indian worker as compensation for his years of servitude. The folk story has a happy ending: The Indian worker is moved by the local solidarity, including that of the sponsor’s own children, and declares his conversion to Islam. However, this alleged murder does not feature in the book or the film.
Al-Dailij argued that the film instead portrays Saudi men as barbaric, with the intent of defaming both Saudi people and their country.
In India too, questions were asked about the figures behind the novel. The real person behind the character of Muhammad, whose story inspired Benyamin to write “Aadujeevitham,” was not known publicly in India until 2018. But since then, there has been deep interest and Muhammad has given a few widely circulated interviews sharing his account of what happened to him.
He shared how he sold his land and belongings for the visa, and that his agent had told him that the job was working as a salesperson in a supermarket. His wife was eight months pregnant at that time. “From the airport, it was a two-day travel and it seemed never-ending. From that itself, I realized that it was a trap,” Muhammad told The News Minute in 2018. He explained that his job was to herd 700 goats owned by his employer, who would watch him through binoculars to make sure he didn’t try to escape. “He had no remorse even when he saw me crying and would beat me. I had to eat stale kuboos [a type of pitta bread]. I would use goat’s milk to wet the kuboos and eat it.” He claimed that his employer would not allow Muhammad to use any water to bathe or clean himself, and he only had one simple garment to wear.
Muhammad said he escaped one night when his employers left for a family wedding and he did not look back. He shared that an Arab man offered him a ride to Riyadh. Later, he sought help from the local Indian community and surrendered himself to the Saudi legal system.
Upon his return to India, Muhammad resumed working as a daily wage laborer, but eventually returned to the Gulf two years later after he was given a free visa by his brother-in-law in Bahrain.
That part of Muhammad’s story wasn’t in the film; indeed, Blessy said he only adapted 43 pages of the novel. For Saudi viewers, the film, despite being critically acclaimed in Kerala, is only a partial depiction of 1990s Saudi society. For Keralites, whose state has become rich because of migration to the Gulf, the story is also partial. Yet it has captured the imagination of many, because it highlights an untold yet important part of the long history of migration to the glittering Gulf.
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