The Coolie

HOT PLATFORM, SEETHING WITH humanity and flies. Fruit and sweet vendors plying their trades add to the general air of noisy confusion. Sleeping forms lying about are herded in every available patch of shade.

An incessant chorus of babbling mynas add to the din.

Trains, great fiery snorting monsters, forge their way from out of the heat haze and disgorge their cargo of passengers or goods.

Bare footed sweating coolies plunge into the melee. The sleeping figures, roused to activity, jostle and run with the rest.

Pandemonium reigns . . . . Packages are humped on straining backs . . . . Hoarse cries to clear the way . . . . And outside the tongawallahs seethe towards the station entrance in their eagerness to find a fare.

Nowhere is the scene without interest.

Slender women clutching brown babies follow, with a tinkle of anklets and bangles, in the wake of their husbands. Some are huddled in the voluminous folds of the disguising burkha lest alien eyes should gaze upon their charms. There, a fierce black bearded Hillman from the frontier; here, a Bengali babu complete with spectacles and umbrella. A demure child-wife, with soft shy eyes, passes with her veil half blown back from her frightened face—never before, perhaps, has she travelled and the bustle and roar bewilder her.

In the goodsyard coolies toil unceasingly. Wagons filled with sacks of grain or flour, bales of cotton, bundles of hide must all be unloaded. They work rhythmically to a monotonous chant. Muscles ripple beneath gleaming brown skins. For the most part they are happy. There are many worse things in life than being a coolie in regular employ.

One old man stands apart, and, with a hint of wistfulness in sunken eyes, watches the young men work. Days there were, when he, too, could labour as they.

What had it mattered when a wagon had been opened to reveal heavy piled up sacks? He had been wont to hurl himself upon them and, full of bursting energy, heave them one by one into the yard.

Those good days were gone.

His failing strength had been remarked upon—well he knew the head coolie to be his enemy. He had borne tales to the great ones—tales and lies, too, which told how the old coolie was lazy and also of how he would rip open a corner of a sack in order to steal a few handfuls of corn.

Of course the great ones had believed and he had been dismissed. He harboured no resentment for was it not ever thus?

Later, the head coolie had been found pilfering and he, also, had been sent away; the sahibs were ever just!

As yet the erstwhile coolie had not told his wife and growing family of the misfortune which had befallen. She was about to bear another child and women at such times must be protected. Each day her husband set out as though to work. Wearily, he would pad along the dusty highway—soon his few savings would be gone and what then? But they would last out until the child was born, and by that time, who knew, he might find work.

The old scene and the old life fascinated him, and so each day he came and stood apart, watching—ever watching.

The seeds of weakness were in his body, the lifting of a few more heavy loads and oblivion—his soul would speed away from his worn out body, he would dwell in the realms of the spirits of his forefathers. This must not be, for who would care for his house and family?

Thus, and ever thus, he pondered in his simple mind.

* * *

Each morning before the sun rose to full glory it was the custom of the memsahib to ride. The syce brought the little chestnut mare up to the steps and many a morning she shied away and lashed out dislodging a pot of ferns.

The memsahib laughed gaily and thought of the exhilarating gallop across the maidan.

‘Have a care, old lady, I don’t like the look in that animal’s eye?’

Again the memsahib laughed and paid scant heed to the cautioning words of her husband. Springing lightly into the saddle she was out of the gate with a scurry of hoofs.

The syce shook his head and voiced his thoughts to the mali: ‘That one has a heart of evil, she is no fit ride for the memlog!’ And the wise mali agreed.

But the mare was going quietly now, the memsahib patted the arching neck. She loved her morning ride—no Indian liver for her, the warm blood coursed strongly through her veins.

Ahead was the funny old man whom she passed each day; always he salaamed her and smiled. She liked his old face, today she would speak to him.

‘Ah, buddha, to where do you go each morning?’ she called.

‘Huzoor, I go to the railway station to work,’ he lied, for he was the one-time coolie who had been dismissed.

‘So? And the work is hard and the hours are long?’

‘All work is good, memsahib!’

She laughed and carelessly flicked the pony with her whip. Maddened the chestnut mare reared, clawing the air with its forelegs, then it seized the bit between its teeth and dashed wildly down the road.

The memsahib was unprepared, she lost her head. The pony swerved, tried to jump a mud wall, blundered and fell, throwing its rider.

The memsahib lay stunned.

The coolie, very much afraid, ran to the spot.

‘Memsahib—memsahib?’ he called anxiously.

There was no movement from the prostrate figure. The memsahib’s topee had fallen off and a blue bruise was darkening her forehead.

‘Of a surety I shall be blamed for this!’ muttered the coolie.

He would have liked to run away and hide but he could not leave her thus—besides she had smiled at him.

Wondering if it would kill him he stooped to hoist the unconscious girl on to his shoulders, just in the same way as he had carried the sacks of grain. He found her heavier than he expected.

With his burden he set off for the nearest bungalow. It was not far but his heart was throbbing curiously and his lungs did not seem to be working properly.

* * *

‘Oh, I’m all right! It was only a knock on the head—what happened to the mare?’

Rather pale and shaken the memsahib was reassuring her distracted husband.

‘Darling, are you sure you’re all right? I shall have that brute shot!’

‘No, no! It was all my fault—she’s a topping ride. Please, Bobby, don’t be silly! How did I get here, anyway?’ she asked, looking round the strange bedroom.

‘Oh, some old coolie carried you—thank God. These people are such fools, often they’d rather leave one to die.’

‘Of course—I remember, I was talking to him. Where is he now?’

‘I don’t know. Hanging about for backsheesh, I suppose,’ he said, ungratefully.

‘He seemed a nice old man—works at the station,’ she replied, while once again she visualized the rather wistful tired face.

It was decided that the memsahib could be moved back to her own bungalow by car. She felt giddy when she tried to walk and her husband put a steadying arm round her.

Outside the gate was a curled up, moaning figure. She recognized it.

‘Stop! Stop!’ she cried, ‘that is the old man who brought me here! Oh! Bobby, he’s hurt—we must do something!’

‘All right, dear, I’ll see to it later. Let me get you home first—.’

‘No! We can’t leave him like this!—Bobby?’

He could not withstand her pleading.

* * *

The old coolie was taken to the Mission Hospital.

He was hopelessly crocked—years of weight-lifting took their toll. He fought his way back to health and a semblance of his old self.

Once, the memsahib visited him. He was greatly touched by her solicitude.

‘I am afraid you will never again be strong enough to work at the station,’ she said, gently.

The old eyes dimmed.

‘Preserver of the Poor,’ he began, ‘this unworthy one craves, forgiveness. Of my work at the station I spoke not the truth—.’

The whole pathetic little history came tumbling out, finishing with: ‘Be not angry with thy servant!’

‘I am not angry,’ she replied, ‘and I would help you. You risked your life for me, it is only right that I should reward you.’

The old man’s eyes lit up with a gleam of hope—visions of his family starving had tortured his illness and retarded his recovery.

If only she could re-establish him at the station! A goodsyard chowkidar perhaps! The great white lords were all powerful—to be back on any sort of work at the station was the height of his ambition, and had he not been dismissed on a false charge?

Eagerly his eyes scanned her face. Would it be too much to ask?

She smiled. ‘What would you that I should do for you?’

‘Huzoor, even I, mean and humble as I am, have my pride. If of the memsahib’s goodness a small position of trust at the station—such as chowkidar—could be found for me?’ The voice trailed off uncertainly.

‘I will see. If it is possible it shall be done.’

* * *

Now he walks proudly on his nightly rounds, guarding the sacks of grain that he was once supposed to have tampered with.

Many are the blessings which he calls down upon the head of the kind lady.

‘Long may she prosper!’

And long may he prosper.