Director Blessy wished to adapt this novel, among the best known stories about the Malayali migrant struggle, for the screen 16 years ago. After numerous obstacles, not in the least the pandemic that put the brakes on the shoot, Aadujeevitham (2024) was released on March 28 in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi. Prithviraj plays Najeeb in the film. Other actors in the cast include Amala Paul, KR Gokul and Jimmy Jean-Louis.
Ever since the film’s release, there have been innumerable comparisons between the book and the novel. Much of Aadujeevitham, the book, is about the introspection of a lonely man. The film, however, is in the mode of a survival thriller with elements of adventure. “It is quite easy to express certain emotions in words, but it’s not so simple to do it in cinema. You have to translate those words into visuals and music. That’s where Blessy’s craftsmanship comes in,” said Benyamin. “The novel may have had many incidents to highlight Najeeb’s loneliness, but Blessy has come up with his own ideas to convey it beautifully. Many viewers have told me that they felt like they travelled with Najeeb when they watched the film.”
Film journalist Vivek S lived in the Middle East from the time he was two years old until recently. He read Aadujeevitham over a decade ago after his friends recommended the book to him. “I was in college back then, and it is a very popular novel among the Malayali migrant community. I was not a big reader and this was one of the rare novels that I read cover to cover in one stretch. I found it exhilarating but was also heartbroken by it,” he recalled.
As a fan of the novel, Vivek wanted to see more of Najeeb’s relationship to the goats in the film. In the novel, there are several moving passages that describe how Najeeb comes to see the goats as his friends and family. He even names a baby goat ‘Nabeel’ after his unborn son – his wife is pregnant at the time of his departure – and pays special attention to him. When he escapes the desert, Najeeb is unable to eat mutton because of the extent to which he identifies with the animals.
