Skip to main content

Goat Days


The original Malayalam version of the novel, Goat Days, is celebrating its hundredth reprint.  The novel tells the story of a young man named Najeeb who goes to the Gulf from Kerala in the 1990s in pursuit of his dreams for a better life: a decent home, a TV with a VCP, some gold ornaments for the family... What he gets, however, is a solitary life with a herd of goats somewhere in the Arabian deserts.  He is trapped inescapably between the burning desert sands and the freezing lonely nights.  Every attempt of his to explore beyond the enclosure assigned to him is met with inhuman punishments.  The goats eventually become his friends, the only friends, so much so that he consummates the bond by mating with a she-goat one night.  His dreams do not die, however.  He is innocent enough to dream endlessly.  His innocence and the dreams born of that innocence help him to escape finally.

The novel is based on the experiences of a real person who is still living in Kerala, having returned home after his escape from his “goat days”.  The man still retains his innocence, says the author in the epilogue to the Malayalam version I read three years ago.  Penguin published the English translation three years ago, but I preferred to read the original Malayalam version and a friend in Kochi was generous enough to send me a copy.

Courtesy The Hindu
Certain judicial verdicts made in the present India reminded me strangely of Najeeb and his innocence.  People with political power, financial clout or some such influence can escape punishment in India, it seems, whatever their offence.  Evidences disappear miraculously for such people.  Or scapegoats carry their sins and go to prison.  Or their crime is trivialised to such an extent that they become the victims ostensibly more pathetic than the real victims.

The balance is highly tilted.  Social Darwinism has not only become the norm but also gained respectability.  Those who have clout of any sort can do anything at all and get away with it, however inhuman the deed.

Religious leaders can encroach upon reserved forests with the full support of the government and the judiciary.  Land mafia groups can subvert every law regarding acquisition of agricultural or other lands.  Educational institutions can disappear overnight to pave the way for shopping malls or tourist resorts.  Venal goons masquerade as moral guardians of the society.  Gods are peddled on the streets like cheap toys.  

Yet I dream.  Maybe, I’m a bit like Najeeb of Goat Days.  Maybe, I’m a fool.


Labels:

Comments

  1. Jay NeogMay 13, 2015 at 12:48 PM

    As I read the first paragraph, I thought the book will be similar to 'The Alchemist'.
    Then I learned, it is about India. And when it is about our country, the story obviously will have something deeper and darker.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 13, 2015 at 1:46 PM

      The novel is about the Indians and, by extension other Asians, who work in the Gulf countries. But my reflections are about India.

      Delete
  2. K V V S MURTHYMay 13, 2015 at 3:58 PM

    I feel all this is happening because of judicial shenanigans...That's it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 13, 2015 at 6:57 PM

      But our judiciary used to enjoy enviable respectability

      Delete
  3. UnknownMay 14, 2015 at 1:25 AM

    It's remarkable how you always relate the books you read with the current affairs in the country!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 14, 2015 at 6:58 AM

      Sreesha, even i'm not able to understand how my memory works. It makes connections which are not always desirable....

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The
62 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so
39 comments
Read more

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r
34 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let
36 comments
Read more