All we imagine as work: The many lives of the tenacious, transnational Malayali nurse

The ubiquitous Malayali nurse has a story to tell – be it the fictional character Prabha from the celebrated film All We Imagine as Light or Nimisha Priya, in a Yemeni prison, who narrowly escaped being executed for murdering her Yemeni “husband”.

A tenacious, transnational figure, the Malayali nurse has worked in European countries since the 1960s and crossed the Atlantic to the United States. They are known to have rescued the German healthcare system from an acute staff shortage and are found hard at work in areas of strife and war, like Priya in Yemen.

Malayalam novelist Benyamin’s Nishabdha Sanjarangal, or The Silent Journeys, honours the Malayali woman who rescued many poor families from deprivation, perhaps even before Malayali men set off on migratory journeys.

The “Malayali nurse” supports her community but is also a source of anxiety, seen as a threat to local societies often because of the single, unattached lives they lead in far-off lands, away from the surveillance of the community. This social context is central to the story of Priya, who came to Yemen when she was just 19 years old.

A Malayali nurse in Yemen

War and civil strife since 2015 in Yemen and an absent sovereign government have left immigrant women workers, like Priya, especially vulnerable. She must have found...

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