What is Paradesi about?
Paradesi is basically about how the India-Pak partition affected the Muslim people of Kerala. The story is about an 80-year old Malayali, Valiyidathu Moosa's struggle to be permitted to live in his own native place. He was working in Karachi when India and Pakistan attained independence.
Was he in Pakistan with his family?
No, he had gone to Karachi alone to work. It is like people going to the Gulf region to work today. Most of them do not go with their families to the Gulf. But in those days, Malayali men went from the villages to Karachi and Bombay because that was where the jobs were.
More than 3000 Malayalis were in Karachi when partition took place and many died there. Some like Moosa came back.
But if you look at the history of Kerala, there is no mention of these people. I don't know why historians and intellectuals ignore them. There are many people over there who have lost their roots, motherland, family and their own language.
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