Watching ‘Malabari Films’ in Bihar: Gulf Migration and Transregional Connections

Even as OTT brings Malayalam cinema to urban elites across India, we forget the transregional viewership that Malayalam cinema has long enjoyed among Gulf migrants. Drawing from his own life, Nehal reflects on how Malayalam cinema speaks to the Bihari Gulf migrant experience.

Nehal Ahmed

Editors’ Note: Ala has also featured a Malayalam translation of this piece.

Satyajit Ray wrote, ‘The raw material of cinema is life itself’ (1948). Yet, as a Bihari from the district of Siwan, where working-class men migrate enmasse to the Arabian Gulf, I rarely saw representations of Gulf migration in the Hindi and Bhojpuri films regularly consumed in our region. In my own family, my father and uncle went to work as labour after the oil boom of the 1970s. My three brothers also migrated for blue-collar jobs after 2010. Cinema on migration was indeed ‘life itself’ for me.

In 2015, I migrated to Pondicherry for my postgraduate degree, where I met many of my classmates from Kerala. Before the explosion of OTT made Malayalam cinema nationally popular, my friends made me watch many Malayalam films. Among them, Pathemari (2015) deeply moved me and changed my perspective on the Gulf. While watching the film, I cried throughout. I felt like it was a biography of my father, and that we all are characters in that film. Until then, I saw the Gulf as merely a place where one can go and earn money and bring back a range of coveted consumables like chocolate, perfume, and electronics. But Pathemari made me see Gulf migration as a phenomenon and an experience shared by many; it transformed the way I saw my own father and our family. Soon after, I made a friend who was doing their PhD on Benyamin’s famous novel, Goat Days. Reading Goat Days was a similar experience for me. I soon realized that Gulf migration is an important part of Malayalam cinema. I keep telling my Kerala friends that Gulf migration is almost the same in my region—the only difference is that we do not have oceans.

‘Malvari’ Films

This experience of finding resonance in Malayalam films was not limited to just me. When I came back from Pondicherry and was watching a new Malayalam film on TV, my father, who by then had left the Gulf and moved back home, asked, ‘Who is the hero?’ ‘Dulquer Salman’, I replied, and he unexpectedly said, ‘He is the son of Mammotty’, adding, ‘in Malayalam, there are only two heroes. One is Mammootty and the other is Mohanlal. The rest are not good’. I was surprised; I had never heard him express any opinions about Bollywood stars. Much before me, my father and many like him used to watch Malayalam films in the Gulf. When at home, my father would regularly narrate the stories of the Malayalam films he watched, even if he never remembered their titles. When my mother asked how he understood the films, he said that his roommates and friends would help him as they watched the film together. During my school days, when my brother would come home to visit from Dubai, he would often praise what he called Malabari cinema.

My family’s experience reflects a long history of Kerala reaching Bihar and Pakistan through the Gulf. People of my village who are migrants keep referring to Kerala’s people not as Malayalis or Keralites, but as Malvari, which I later understood to mean Malabari. Interestingly, as I watched a Pakistani comedy stage drama, I noted how a character, played by the actor Umar Sharif, said, ‘Malvari ka khat aya hai‘ (a letter has come from Malvari). Decades before OTT, a range of Keralite cultural artefacts apart from cinema have circulated in our family. Whenever Gulf migrants go back to work, they take gifts from their hometowns for their close friends and roommates. So, the first mundu I wore was gifted by my father’s friend in Saudi. My father asked his friend to bring my mother and sister the classic Kerala-style golden-bordered saree and small cotton towels for drying hair (thorthu). Long before I came to be around Malayali people in Tamil land in my college days, Kerala and Bihar were connected through the Gulf.

Untold Stories of Migration

Gulf migration is not just a major phenomenon in Kerala; north Indian states also see massive migration to the Gulf. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar accounted for the biggest share (30% and 15%) of all Indian workers migrating to GCC¹ countries in 2016-17 (Khan 2023)—a trend which continues today. Remittances from the Gulf have brought about significant growth in Bihar’s economy (Khan 2023)—as part of a migrant’s family, I have observed a tangible shift in the quality of life, education, houses, and so on, in Siwan. In Bihar, three districts—Siwan, Gopalganj, and Chapra—send the majority of Gulf migrants from the state, mostly for manual labor (Khan 2023). Bihar also sees internal migration of daily wagers to Delhi, Bombay, and other parts of India. Gulf migration from India’s northern regions, like elsewhere in India, began after the oil boom in the 1970s. Before this time, migration was limited to a few places such as Assam, Calcutta, Bokaro, and Barauni—my own grandfather worked in the Bokaro steel factory. 

Despite the role of Gulf migration and internal migration in north Indian regions, we see a representational void in popular culture. Bollywood films on migration largely use rural settings, focussing on people who work in the USA, Europe, or Canada. The narratives centre these migrants’ love for the land and use dialogue such as ‘mitti ki khusbu‘ (fragrance of homeland). Few Bollywood films, like Dor and Silvat, portray internal migration and Gulf migration. While Bollywood films frequently centre diasporic experiences such as Gujaratis in the USA and Punjabis in Canada, they fail in portraying Bihari migrants, be they indentured labourers in the diaspora, daily wagers in Bengal, or Gulf migrants. The regional Bhojpuri film industry fares no better in this regard. ‘A good chunk of the budget is spent on songs since Bhojpuri songs have an even larger viewership that goes beyond the Bhojpuri-speaking public’, notes Ahmed (2022), marking a context where there is little purchase for Gulf migration to be used as a reference to narrate human stories of longing, sacrifice, and family. 

One reason for this biased representation of migration is that we see ‘migration’ as a monolith. In academic discourse, too, migration is often depicted as a commonplace phenomenon, but I believe it is crucial to make nuanced distinctions in the usage of the terms ‘migration’ and ‘migrant’. The term ‘migration’ is a broad umbrella term that may oversimplify the diverse experiences within this category. My specific concern is about Gulf migrants, as their migration often occurs under challenging circumstances. For individuals from my region, heading to the Gulf is typically a last resort. This kind of migration leads to many difficulties, especially when it distances migrants from their family for much of their lifetime. The term ‘migration’, therefore, inadequately captures the profound differences between, for instance, migrating to the USA for educational purposes and migrating to the Gulf for labour jobs. Bihar has a rich history of migration, dating back to the era of indentured labor known as girmitiya. Following the abolition of slavery in 1883, colonial powers engaged in the recruitment of laborers for their other colonies through agreements (Jha 2019). Girmitiya distinguishes itself from the migration. People who are going to the Arabian Gulf as blue-collar labourers are also called ‘Gulf migrants’—a term that erases how their conditions are very close to slavery. This is why, as a son who rarely saw his father, I prefer to call myself a ‘victim of migration’ rather than just a ‘part of migration’. It is this sense of victimhood and lack of control over one’s life that I saw missing in Bollywood and Bhojpuri cinema.

Memories and Intimacies on Screen

In contrast, the experiences of Gulf migrants from various class strata and from all religions is one of the very crucial historical aspects of Malayalam cinema, and features as a common element in narratives focussing on the common man. In the 1970s, known as the ‘golden age’ of Malayalam cinema because of the efflorescence of art house cinema, the theme of migration was introduced. Nevertheless, art cinema like Swayamvaram (1972) and Elippathayam (1982) by Adoor Gopalakrishnan largely underlined the struggle of modernity versus traditionalism within Kerala. In the 1980s, with the influx of capital into the film industry because of Gulf migration, Malayalam cinema widened its horizon to include middlebrow and commercial cinema. Since the 2010s, the wave of what is called ‘new generation’ cinema also began experimenting with Gulf migration as a theme. Gulf migration has thus become a phenomenon in the film and literature of Kerala, spawning several new terms such as ‘Gulfukaran’, ‘Gulf syndrome’, ‘Gulf returnee’, ‘non-resident Malayali’, etc. Gulf migration films from across these eras, like Varavelppu (1989), Garshom (1999), Perumazhakkalam (2004), Khaddama (2001), Take Off (2017), Ustad Hotel (2015), Pathemari (2015), and C U Soon (2020) lend voice and image to my memories of Gulf migration. 

In Pathemari (2015), I felt like I was watching my own father, and not Pallikkal Narayanan, played by Mammotty. Each and every scene brought back memories, and I had heard much of the dialogue spoken in my family. In one scene, when Mammootty’s character asks to give the phone to his kids and they refuse to talk, I remembered doing the same. Visiting home, the protagonist lands in Bombay and is harassed by a customs officer, after which he has to travel all the way to Kerala, leading him to say, ‘It is easy to reach Bombay from the Gulf, but it is difficult to travel from Bombay to Kerala’. On his visit, he secretly gives his wife gifts, and as he takes leave to return to the Gulf, he gives his wristwatch to a young boy in the family. These are all scenes I have heard described by my father and many other migrants. The most painful scene of the film for me was when the protagonist receives news of his mother’s passing. I strongly related to this scene because, in my village, very few people had a telephone connection. Migrants from the area used to call my home to talk to their family. Whenever they heard the news of the death of a loved one, especially a parent, they reacted with Narayanan’s same lament, ‘Abhi to thik thi, kaisi mar gai?‘ (She was alright, how did she die?). 

Another recognisable instance in the film is when, on his first night back home, Narayanan presents his wife with a packet saying it is for her. She refuses, seeing someone else’s name on it. He then tells her it is indeed for her; had he given it to her before everyone else in the family, other family members would have taken this too. He opens the pack and sprays the perfume on his wife. Though the name of the perfume is not shown in the scene, I recognised it as the same ‘Royal Mirage’ perfume bottle my father would secretly give my mother. On a visit to Qatar, I saw that all these ever-familiar products that migrants commonly brought home were not available in the large city malls, but in local shops in or near labor camps—Batook chewing gum, Brut, Royal Mirage, Solaron blanket, and so on.

Varavelpu (1989) is another film that resonated deeply with my father. I have a memory from my childhood of my father telling the story of a film to my mother: ‘The hero came back from the Gulf and decided not to go back, and he bought a bus and started a business so he can stay home with his family. But sadly, he failed in the business, sold the bus, and went back to the Gulf, exactly like me’. My father had also bought trucks but could not succeed in the business, so he returned to work in the Gulf. Much later, I came to know that the film is called Varavelpu (1989). All these films are beautiful representations of Gulf migration.

The Still Invisible Victims of Migration

Gulf migration cinema in Malayalam is not without flaws. This genre of cinema fails to adequately portray the wives of the migrants who have been left behind, especially in terms of their sexuality and pleasure. It seems that the sexual suppression and emotional struggles of women are not part of popular culture. There are few Gulf migration movies which have women protagonists. Men who migrate are portrayed as war heroes and sacrificers. On the other hand, women’s lives are given a negative connotation, and their sufferings are mostly ignored or underplayed, reflecting the dominant framing of the migrant family. My father, too, always says to my mother, ‘I was all alone in the Gulf, eating rotten food, but I always tried to send money home on time’. As kids, we always listened to Gulf returnees’ stories as if listening to war stories. Among these many stories, I never heard stories of my mother, or for that matter, any migrant’s wife. Silvat (2016) by Tanuja Chandra is a notable exception, centering the pain and frustrations of a migrant wife who stays all alone in the old city of Bombay awaiting the return of her husband from Riyadh. Nevertheless, the perspective of women migrants is beginning to be addressed in films like AyishaI, Take Off, Khaddama, C U Soon, etc. 

Sadly, language barriers prevent much of my family from enjoying these, but they find a way into our lives through my father and me. These days, films are being released on OTT in multiple languages, including Hindi, and this might help more Bihari migrants to see their narratives on screen. 

References

• Ahmed, Nehal. 2022. ‘Bhojpuri Cinema: The Dynamics Between Global Market And Local Cultures’, The Outlook, 19 March.
• Jha, P.K., 2019. Coolie Lines (Vol. 1). Vani Prakashan.
• Khan, Imran. 2023. ‘Gulf Migration and Its Economic Impact on EMigrant Family: A Case Study of Selected Districts of Bihar, India’. PhD diss, Jamia Milia Islamia.
• Koyippally, Joseph. 2012. Goat Days. New Delhi: Penguin India.
• Radhakrishnan, Ratheesh. 2009. The Gulf in the Imagination: Migration, Malayalam Cinema and Regional Identity. Contributions to Indian Sociology 43(2), 217-245.
• Ray, Satyajit. 1948, ‘Indian films’, The Statesman, 2 October.

Filmography

• Ahamed, Salim. 2015. Pathemari. Allens Media.
• Anthikad, Sathyan. 1989. Varavelpu. K.R.G. Movie International.
• Chandra, Tanuja. 2016. Silvat. Zee Entertainment Enterprises.
• Gopalakrishnan, Adoor. 1972. Swayamvaram. Chitralekha FIlm Cooperative.
• Gopalakrishnan, Adoor. 1982. Elippathayam. K Ravindran Nair.
• Kamal. 2004. Perumazhakkalam. Salim Padiyath.
• Kamal. 2011. Khaddama. Anitha Productions.
• Kukunoor, Nagesh. 2006. Dor. Elahe Hiptoola.
• Muhammed, P T K. 1999. Garshom. Janasakthi Films.
• Narayanan, Mahesh. 2017. Take Off. Anto Joseph Film Company.
• Narayanan, Mahesh. 2020. C U Soon. Fahad Fasil and Friends.
• Pallikkal, Aamir. 2023. Ayisha. Cross Border Cinema.
• Rasheed, Anwar. 2012. Ustad Hotel. Magic Frame.

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About the Author: Nehal Ahmed is a doctoral student at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. His research interests consist of Indian cinema, world cinema, and migration studies. He writes on cinema, migration, and human stories for The Hindu, Al Jazeera, The Telegraph and Outlook. Nothing Will be Forgotten: From Jamia to Shaheenbagh is his first book. He is currently working on his second book, Gulf in My Family, based on Gulf migration. He can be contacted at na82495@gmail.com.