Coolie

As the circus train pulls out for distant Bombay, Munoo is as excited as he is terrified: “He was going away to a new world, to the new, the wonderful world of a big city where there were […] rich people who just threw money about to the coolies in the street” (145). Wonderful things, he is sure, are about to happen. As he tries to get comfortable on a crumpled sack, he cannot even imagine the city: “Tall buildings appeared before his mind’s eye, like those clean-cut, white stone buildings in […] Daulatpur. Beyond that and the conception of broad streets his mind failed to imagine anything” (148). The train ride is more than a thousand miles west to coastal India. Munoo watches as India rolls past, a world he does not know. The elephant keeper smuggles food to Munoo, fried sweet bread and carrot pickles. As the train finally pulls into Bombay’s cavernous Victoria Station, Munoo whispers quietly to himself, “Come now, heart’s desire” (152).

He heads into Bombay’s crowded streets. The noise and chaos confuse him. To calm himself, he settles down on a bench to eat the fried bread he kept. As soon as he unwraps the bread, crows descend on him and make off with all of it.