Last Updated on October 31, 2021 by themigrationnews
Deepak Unnikrishnan is the author of the fiction novel- ‘Temporary People’, published in 2017 by Restless Books. The author compiled twenty-eight short stories and divided them in three parts titled Limbs; Tongue. Flesh and Veed. The author was born to migrant labourers in the Gulf. In 2016, Deepak Unnikrishnan won the inaugural Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, with his then-unpublished manuscript, Temporary People. He grew up in Abu Dhabi, but his parents are pravasis.[1]
Deepak Unnikrishnan’s debut novel Temporary People takes the readers through migrants’ the journey to the United Arab Emirates. Temporary People is about a set of experiences unique to the Gulf and to its system of migrant labour. The novel explores the lives and experiences of immigrants in a succinct way despite the context of chaotic, fragile lives of migrant labourers living in foreign countries. The author captures the hopes; desires and sufferings of an immigrant who flees his country in search of work. The novel is accentuated by the fact that such life histories are often not heard by the common man, or it is not published in public eye. The tone of the story is set by the statement of an anonymous person that serves as an epigraph for ‘Limbs’: “There exists this city built by labour, mostly men, who disappear after their respective buildings are made” (p. 12).
The revolving theme of the novel is on the lives of immigrants. The word pravasi is used regularly throughout the novel. Unnikrishnan the lived experiences of the immigrants as he focuses on their dreams and expectations when they go to work in the Gulf countries. They dream of making money and returning home with rich status to live a luxurious life. These dreams are broken eventually when they face cruelty of their host country.
The first story in the novel is about a woman who glues together and fixes broken, dying people. These people are primarily on-site labourers responsible for the construction of buildings for the city skylines. Basically, they are the invisible, non-citizens of a global enterprise which pumps the productivity out of them. For anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time in a foreign country be it out of necessity, loneliness becomes is a constant companion. According to Unnikrishnan, foreign nationals make up to 80 per cent of the population in UAE countries. They contribute significantly to the economy but still they feel alienated.
Unnikrishnan explains in the introduction that as a son of pravasis, his departure from Abu Dhabi was inevitable: ‘The UAE does not grant citizenship to its foreign labour force or their children.’ The novel uses short stories which incorporate a variety of forms such as official reports; transcripts of interviews; lists-to build up a kaleidoscopic portrait of migrant workers working in the UAE. These include a girl who has been sexually abused in an elevator. What does it mean to be a pravasi? Unnikrishnan does not provide a definitive answer. While he did not provide a definition, he tried to use language to define and illustrate the typical lived experiences of a pravasi. Unnikirishnan suggests one way where pravasis hang onto their own selves by conjuring a language so lively that it defies the numbing effects of being belittled and dishonoured.
In another story Nalinakshi, the author further explores these sentiments by using the word Pravasi which in Malayalam means foreigner or outsider. But more than anything else, pravasi is about the forgotten ones and the absent in this novel.
Temporary People digs into the lives; imaginaries; myths and vocabularies of the Southeast Asian nations and Filipinos who make up the UAE’s subaltern class. Unnikrishnan creates a vivid bottom-up vernacular history of the modern Gulf oil state. The strength of Unnikrishnan’s writing is in his ability to take readers to another place. The stories linger into the mind for long. Many of Unnikrishnan’s stories allegorically depict what life is like for the temporary workers within the UAE.
Unnikrishnan puts emphasis on the use and importance of language throughout the novel. There is a mix of the mother tongue of the immigrants with that of English which makes this novel more interesting to read. In the story Monseepalty, the author writes about a group of Indian migrants playing soccer together in empty parking lots. ‘For a few hours we were all temporary inhabitants of Monseepalty,’ the narrator explains. The vision of community and unity, however, is eventually shattered once the police arrive to break and stop the games. It is interesting to read when the Indian migrants scatter and hide while a shirtless boy from a group of Arab players walks boldly towards the patrol car. The kid and the police then shake hands, share a joke and then the Arab boys return to playing soccer. The Arab boys not only have cultural status but also a command over Arabic signifies their belonging in the community.
The characters in the novel do not reappear from one chapter to the next. Each chapter in the novel conveys the experience of temporariness and shows the fragmentation of the community. The voices in the novel are rich and varied. The range of bonds are fragile where it was shown that friends betray friends; brothers betray brothers; mothers abandon children and children leave parents behind; pravasi, the foreigner, outsider or an immigrant who forsakes his own culture for another and thus can never be trusted. The stories of Temporary People render an invisible community visible. These stories help understanding about home and as well as past and future. Yet the novel simultaneously details the effect “temporary” status which has on cultural as well as familial bonds.
Through storytelling, Unnikrishnan reveals to the reader what has been left behind by migrants and as well as what they have created. These stories introduce readers to Malayalee labourers who eventually rebel against their masters. Unnikrishnan uses his own cultural experiences and adds Malayalam diction (his mother-tongue). The novel is a refreshing read as it beautifully captures the unique experiences of immigrant workers.
However, despite being a fantastic read, there are two notable weaknesses in the novel. Firstly, the stories deserve more than one read to fully grasp all the complexities. Secondly, some of the stories are long and feel like they take too long to finish. Nevertheless, the stories are powerful and challenging and will remain in the mind long after it is finished. Deepak Unnikrishnan rightfully titled the novel where the stories are interconnected with one another and fits the entire theme about people who are temporary. Unnikrishnan was the right choice to win the first New Immigrant Writing prize where his voice amplified the experiences of immigrants. The powerful yet unique narrative is the main highlight of the novel and provides with excellent information about the immigrants. Accordingly, it makes it an in-depth source of information for students; researchers, policy makers or anyone who has interest in understanding narratives and life-stories from the lens of immigrants.
[1]Pravasi is the Malayalam word for migrants and temporary workers.
Source: Deepak Unnikrishnan (2017), Temporary People, Brooklyn: Restless Books, 9781632061423, 243 pages.
Piyali Bhowmickis a PhD scholar at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati Off Campus, India. She obtained MPhil degree in 2016 in Social Sciences from TISS Guwahati campus. She has done MA in Sociology in 2014 from Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi. Her areas of interest include- Labour Process, Manufacturing Industry, Sociology of everyday lives, Migration, Family and Kinship, Migration