Araro Ariraro by Gogularaajan / in progress

Araro Ariraro is a musical documentary rooted in the lived memories of Indian Malaysians, told through the forgotten folk songs that once echoed across the estates.

The early Tamils who crossed the oceans from South India to British Malaya as indentured labourers carried very little with them — except their memories, their longing, and their songs.

In 1998, a book titled Malaysia Naatuppura Paadalgal (Malaysian Folk Songs) was published by the late Dr. R. Dhandayutham. It contains over 500 folk song lyrics once sung by Tamil labourers in the plantations of Malaya — a rare archive of voices preserved through oral tradition.

More than two decades later, filmmaker Gogularaajan Rajendran, the great-grandson of an indentured labourer, stumbles upon this forgotten collection.

Through them, he begins to hear echoes of his ancestors, a buried history he had never been given access to.

Read more at: https://www.omsakthifilms.com/araro-ariraro_1/journey-to-araro-ariraro