Unimaginable are the ways in which adversities can reshape a human being. The physical transformation is the most obvious of these. But, Blessy’s Aadujeevitham — based on the real-life story of a man who ends up living in slave-like conditions in a goat farm in the middle of a desert — deals with much more than this.
For instance, it is interesting how the film treats the ill-fated man’s struggles with language. Initially, when Najeeb (Prithviraj Sukumaran) lands up with a younger compatriot at a Saudi airport, one sees him struggling to communicate in any language other than Malayalam. This also has a huge role to play in the unfortunate turn their life takes afterwards.
Later, after years of herding goats and camels in the farm, and with no human interaction (other than the abusive words from his ‘owner’), he loses the only language he knew, almost bleating like a goat when he sees his long-lost friend. Aadujeevitham, which otherwise is mostly filled with extreme suffering and heightened emotions, has a few such delicate touches. One of the others being an emaciated Najeeb finding enough time to savour a bath after long years, in the small window of time that he got to escape from the farm.
