I approached “Goat Days” with modest expectations, anticipating a tale of deceit and the exploitation of people lured to the Gulf with false promises, leading to lives of misery. I imagined an exploration of the strategies employed to perpetrate such fraud. Had the book confined itself to these themes or the deeper problems of suffering, it might have been merely ordinary or good. But the narrative ventures beyond, into the heart of existential despair. Stripped of all comforts and basic necessities, life is laid bare, functioning on the fragile hope that there is nothing more, that death could come at any moment, thus rendering worry meaningless. This stark realization mirrored my own feelings during the COVID-19 pandemic: an acceptance that survival hinged on luck, and a resignation to the discomfort and monotony of the situation. Unlike Najeeb’s harrowing tale, my struggle was less severe, as I endured the pandemic in Italy with a friend.
Najeeb and his friend are cast into the desert, their job to care for goats and camels without proper food or shelter. No one around to talk to or watch-, except his boss cruel orders. Even there is no water to drink if he needs. A man literally living only with goats. The cruelty of Najeeb’s boss seems a product of the unforgiving environment and psychological damage. Najeeb, a man full of love for his homeland, his people, and his pregnant wife, is reduced to living among cattle. He names the goats based on their personalities, witnesses their births and deaths, and even treats one as his son. When this goat loses its sexuality through brutal force, Najeeb feels a corresponding loss. He sleeps with the goat, named after a childhood fantasy woman, in a poignant reflection of his own desolation. The vivid descriptions of the vast desert and its intimate connection with life are striking.
Faith emerges as another crucial theme. With no one to help or trust, Najeeb’s faith in God sustains him. Living among the goats, he becomes one with them; though human in form, he experiences love, sadness, and anger through them. The novel is rich with profound insights, touching on the rarest feelings of life more deeply than any story I have read. Najeeb’s struggles evoke a sense of ultimate suffering, making us question the very fabric of our existence and the conventions we hold dear.
In the shadow of goat days, my memory breathes,
Whispers of a story I claim as my own,
In search of a tender touch, a beloved’s caress,
Yet my youth danced with deeper pains alone.
Away from society’s bright, blinding gaze,
Estranged from kin, where the heart’s hearth wanes.
Friends, lovers, enemies — they all took shape,
In the quiet expanse, years stretched and draped.
I feel the ache of Nazeem, lost in the night,
When all is stripped bare, and dreams take flight.
What remains when life itself becomes the test?
No fame, no comfort, but existence’s quest.
When cherished things drift like misty dreams,
When life itself turns into reason and seams,
Lovers, relatives, songs, and the daughters of song,
All fade into shadows where questions belong.
In the boundless sea of existence, where truths entwine,
Life clings to you with a purity, divine.
Embrace the mystery, the raw, the profound,
For in the essence of life, our true selves are found.
