Exaggerations, silences and treasure: Kerala’s Arabian tale of migration to the ‘Gulf’

In my childhood there was a lot of talk of treasure. Many people hunted for treasure, even though finding a trove was fraught with risk. Buried by rich families who had fled dire circumstances, treasure stashes were thought to be cursed and guarded by venomous snakes.

That didn’t stop the quest.

There were rumours of shovels clanging against earthenware while a road or the foundation for a new house was being dug. Sometimes, the diggers would come across urns – called nannangadi – in which human bodies had been buried centuries before.

Many had actually found treasure. It was visible in the dramatic ways in which their lives changed. Thatched, single-roomed huts were replaced by concrete homes. Rough lungis gave way to see-through muslin double mundus or glistening flared trousers. Beedis were swapped out for 555, Rothmans and Dunhill cigarettes.

These were the migrants who worked in the Gulf, returning once every two, three or even five years, to spend a couple of months at home.

The Gulf, as the Arab countries of West Asia are referred to, on the other shore of the Indian Ocean, seems to have been a place full of treasures. In the Arabian tales of migrants, one kept hearing of the Arabi ponnu, or gold....

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