The Goat Life, directed by Blessy, is the story of a man who got trapped in Saudi Arabia for two long years. When he gave up all hope, a miracle happened, and he was able to come back to his country. The film is based on a novel written by Benyamin, named Aadujeevitham, which is inspired by the real-life story of the protagonist, Najeeb Mohammad. The film stars Prithviraj Sukumaran in the lead role, and the actor has done a prolific job portraying the desperateness, helplessness, plight, and angst that Najeeb might have felt during those two years when he was trapped in the desert. So, without wasting a moment, let’s dive straight into the narrative and find out what happened to Najeeb and how he was able to escape from the desert in The Goat Life‘s ending.
Spoiler Alert
What happened with Najeeb and Hakim?
Najeeb met his friend’s brother-in-law, Karuvatta Sreekumar, because he wanted to go to Saudi Arabia and he had heard that people working there got paid a lot. Najeeb believed that he could help his family by sending back money, and if things went right, he would be able to call his wife and settle there itself. Najeeb was told that he would be working as a helper for a company and that he would be given proper accommodation and all the other facilities that he needed. Najeeb mortgaged his house to give Sreekumar the money for all the paperwork that was needed to go to a foreign country, and he believed that he would be able to repay the debt once he started earning well. Najeeb had no clue that it was a trap and that his life would be turned upside down once he reached the foreign country. Najeeb had a beautiful life back in his village. He had a wife named Sainu, whom he loved more than anything else. Sainu was pregnant when Najeeb left his village, and the latter had no clue that he wouldn’t be able to see his newborn for the next couple of years. Najeeb had another person traveling with him named Hakim. This young boy was also going to Saudi Arabia, and both he and Najeeb had the same sponsors. Hakim’s mother was happy that he had Najeeb with him, and she told the latter to take care of her son.
Najeeb and Hakim reached Saudi Arabia, but their Kafeel, i.e., their employer, did not come to pick them up. Najeeb had one number, but when he called it, nobody answered. Najeeb didn’t have the number of the person who was supposed to pick them up, so he didn’t know what to do next. Najeeb and Hakim waited at the airport, hoping that their Kafeel would turn up and take them to their accommodation. Another problem was that they both only spoke Malayalam, and so most of the people didn’t understand a word they said. After waiting for quite some time at the airport, a man came, and he asked both of them to come with him. Najeeb believed that he was his Kafeel, and so they both went with him. The man took both of them to a camp situated deep inside the desert area. He dropped Hakim at one point at a camp and then took Najeeb with him. Najeeb was scared, as he didn’t know what was happening. That man was talking very rudely, and before Najeeb sensed that he was in danger, it was too late. That man had abducted Najeeb and Hakim because he knew that he could do some cost-cutting and make them work as slaves in his camp. Najeeb, for the first few days, was in denial, and he just wasn’t ready to accept that he had been deceived by his agents back in India and then abducted by the Kafeel. But slowly, it started seeping inside him that he was trapped and there was no way out of hell.
How did the Kafeel torture Najeeb?
The Kafeel made Najeeb sleep outside in the open. Once, Najeeb slept inside his tent, and the next morning, he was beaten and abused for doing so. As they were in the desert, the water had to be bought, so Najeeb wasn’t allowed to take a bath. For eating, too, he was given a very hard piece of bread before his work started, and he had to sustain the entire day on it. There was an old man in that desert camp, and I believe that he, too, had been abducted by the Kafeel in the past. That old man had resigned to his fate long ago, and he asked Najeeb to do the same. The old man understood Najeeb’s plight, but he also knew that the sooner the man accepted his reality, the less painful it would be for him to live. But how could Najeeb just accept everything? He was shown a beautiful dream back in India, and he was told that his life would become so much easier after he moved to Saudi Arabia. But overnight, his circumstances had changed, and his mind was still not able to comprehend what had happened to him in the past couple of days. Slowly, that denial turned into compliance as Najeeb realized that he was just wasting his energy trying to find a way to escape from there.
Najeeb just lost track of time. He didn’t know how long it had been since he was trapped there. Once, he saw himself in the side mirror of a vehicle, and he couldn’t recognize himself for a moment. He hadn’t taken a bath for months; he hadn’t shaved his beard; his hair and nails had grown; his teeth had blackened; and Najeeb felt as if there was some other person peeking from the other side of the mirror. Najeeb had tried escaping a few times from the camp, but he had realized that it was just not worth the effort. The highway was miles away from the desert camp, and even if he escaped from there, the scorching heat of the desert would have killed him. Najeeb became just like that old man whom he met when he came to the camp for the first time. Devoid of any sort of hope, Najeeb toiled day and night, but then, one day, something unexpected happened.
Were Najeeb and Hakim able to escape?
In The Goat Life‘s ending, Najeeb was herding the goats when he saw a small cave-like structure amidst the sand dunes. He went to the other side, and he heard a familiar voice. Najeeb realized that it was Hakim who had found him. Both of them cried their hearts out, and then Hakim went back to his Kafeel, telling Najeeb that he would contact him very soon. Hakim told Najeeb that there was an African man named Ibrahim Khadiri who was going to help them escape from there. Khadiri told both the Malayalis that on a specific date, all the Kafeels would go to attend a local wedding, and that would give them a window to escape from the camp. Najeeb knew that the odds were not in his favour, but still, he went ahead with the plan because he didn’t want to spend his entire life in the camp and then die there without seeing the face of his family. Najeeb, Hakim and Khadiri walked day and night. Khadiri almost got killed when he went to take water from a camp as the Kafeels started firing at him. Khadiri was a godsend, and that man didn’t give up on Najeeb and Hakim, even when he could have easily left them behind and gone his way.
Unfortunately, Hakim wasn’t able to survive in the harsh terrain of the desert, and before reaching the highway, he succumbed to the extreme heat. Najeeb defied all odds, and he kept following Khadiri. They finally reached very close to the highway when Khadiri left Najeeb without saying anything. Khadiri was a wanted criminal, and he wouldn’t be able to go with Najeeb all the way to the city. But he made sure that Najeeb was near the highway, and he hoped that someone would give him a lift and take him to the city. A fatigued and injured Najeeb reached the city, and luckily, he was taken in by an Indian man who ran a restaurant there. Najeeb had no documents, and so he had to surrender himself to the police. Najeeb was kept in custody for 3 months, and during that time, his Kafeel came to the police station. Najeeb got to know that the man wasn’t his sponsor, and he had abducted him back in the day. The Kafeel didn’t have an ounce of regret for what he had done; as for them, these laborers were just like fodder.
During The Goat Life‘s ending, Najeeb was finally reunited with his family, and he couldn’t have been more thankful to the almighty, as it was no less than a miracle that he was still alive and among his people.
