Review Time - The 365 Days - Nikhil Ramteke
The 365 Days
-
Nikhil Ramteke
Unlike any other stories of the
time, ‘The 365 Days’ is a novel which portrays the life of a fisherman, who
flies to the Gulf in seek of a better life for himself and his dear ones, back
in Kerala. It’s in the year 2007, like millions of other Malayali’s,
Shijukutty, the protagonist of the tale, dreams about digging fortunes from the
sands of Arabia. Leaving his land and being an immigrant in the foreign land is
not an easily acceptable one, unless one’s situation is worse back in his own
land.
Shijukutty, being a born fisherman
has breathed through the sea and has lived along the waves. Fishing is like
sport, as said by the author; winning and losing are part of the game. It’s the
only way he can make a living.
“Every night I would go to bed
daydreaming. The morning after, in the light of reality and logic, everything
would seem meaningless. Life was predictable and mechanical. Life was a handful
of sand”
Kerala, known as ‘God’s own
country’ has its own Malayali migration story, dates back to more than 50
years. The migration story of them to Dubai is also said along with its
history. Shijukutty realizes that half of his village and the rest of Kerala
are already in Gulf.
With no other option left to make
his living a better one, Shijukutty plans to leave to the Dream City, Dubai.
Though he is broken from within for leaving his beloved wife and son for the
first time, he hides it with the pinch of hope that everything is going to be
good soon.
In Dubai, he is put in the Labor
Accommodation Camp along with the other male workers from different country.
From here, the story is penned soulfully with explain of each scene in the
camp. About the camp, the work hours, the work place, the men living there,
their habitual, the roommates of Shijukutty can be witnessed through the eyes
of the protagonist. The life in the camp is completely far away from his
imagination and it teaches him about the pain that he shall bear for the leftover
days.
Each man living there has his own
sad part of life, which has left him in this worst situation. But on base,
everyone is there for one common reason, to make money. The pains, the
tolerance, the hunger of the soul, the emptiness in the heart, the wounds to be
hidden are narrated in such a picturesque way.
With turn of each page, we are
introduced to new sort of pain to be hidden and problem to tackled by the
protagonist. The way how he has accepted the living can be judged easily, which
he does for his family. The only hope for him to put up with all tortures is
that he can live a happy life with his family in the distant future. The roommates
of Shijukutty, though they are from different lands, share a bond of
understanding and friendship.
The connotation between the
protagonist and Thavamani, one of his inmates, is nailed so deep. The longing
of the protagonist to go back to his land, the numerous colorful dreams of
each soul in there, the yearning to be with the family, the good old day memories
add crisps to the tale. Each character in the novel is portrayed in a
picture-perfect way that the story behind each of it realistically opens up
with the choice of the words. The differentiation between the life of laborers
who toils the pain to construct the buildings and that of the rich ones in
other side, who has never felt those pain beneath those buildings, living in
the same city with different dream is touchwood.
A big applause to the author Nikhil
Ramteke, to have chosen an inevitable theme and has explained realistically.
The way of narration makes the reader to get sensibly affected by the story and
the choice of words adds topping to the cake. The painful truth clustered in
the hearts and minds of the immigrant laborers in unclogged in this novel.
The 365 days – lived through each
day!!
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