An Assamese technocrat based in Oman capital Muscat has penned a novel on the plight of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in the United Arab Emirates.
But while telling the story of a Bangladeshi, Filipino and Sri Lankan who happen to take the same flight to an UAE city, Jayanta Gopal Borpujari said there are many employers who treat immigrant workers fairly.
His debut novel, Beyond the Blinding Sun, has earned appreciation from critics as a fast-paced, action-packed thriller that gives voice to thousands of migrant workers who seek a better life in a foreign land. “This is purely a work of fiction although the characters may seem real. Like every country offering jobs for expatriates, the UAE has its bright and not-so-bright sides, and what immigrant workers go through could be in any part of the globe short of local hands,” he told The Hindu from Muscat.
Mr Borpujari’s debut novel tracks the West Asian dream of Bangladeshi carpenter Dilip Bhowmik, Filipino sales promoter Christina Anne Ruan trying to shake off her marriage to an abusive drug addict, and Sri Lankan Chandrika Gunashekara, a farmer’s daughter. Bhowmik gets placed at the farmhouse of an Emirati, Chandrika becomes a domestic help of a Gujarati trader with a domineering wife and Christina becomes the nanny to the children of an expatriate Jordanian doctor instead of what she was supposed to do – be the salesperson at his wife’s boutique.
The friendship the trio strikes on the flight brings them together in their desperation to break free from a constricted atmosphere. A friendly policeman and a few locals including criminals help them dodge detention centres and escape through treacherous valleys, labyrinthine ghettos, seemingly impregnable police checkpoints and an unforgiving mountain range.“I took a year to write the book and waited another year for a publisher,” Mr Borpujari, an electronics engineer from BITS Pilani and an MBA from Edinburgh Business School said. He is planning a sequel, to be written while handling business development for a leading business group in Oman.
