Kuli

by Mulk Raj Anand

डॉ मुल्कराज आनंद का विश्वविख्यात उपन्यास, जो प्रेमचन्द की कथा-परम्परा को हमारे समय तक लाता है... हिमाचल प्रदेश के कांगड़ा इलाके के एक अनाथ-विपन्न ग्रामीण किशोर के जीवन-संघर्ष की मार्मिक गाथा, जो सच के बहुत करीब है... सीधे समाज के लिए नए सजीव चरित्र, जो ब्रिटिशकालीन भारत के सामाजिक यथार्थ को, स्वातन्योत्तर भारत के सामाजिक यथार्थ से जोड़ते हैं... यथार्थवादी दृष्टि से रचा गया एक अत्यन्त पठनीय एवं स्मरणीय उपन्यास...

Genres: India, Fiction, Classics, Indian Literature, Historical Fiction, Literature, Asia

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Mulk Raj Anand was an Indian writer in English, notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R.K. Narayan, Ahmed Ali and Raja Rao, was one of the first India-based writers in English to gain an international readership. Anand is admired for his novels and short stories, which have acquired the status of being classic works of modern Indian English literature, noted for their perceptive insight into the lives of the oppressed and their analyses of impoverishment, exploitation and misfortune. He is also notable for being among the first writers to incorporate Punjabi and Hindustani idioms into English.

Reviews

[Shabbeer Hassan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Munnoo, the memorable character of Coolie remains even if you have finished the book..A book which shows the face of the "OTHER" India during the pre-partition period.... Also, it correctly shows the actual caste system of India, not the Rajputs, Vaishyas, Shudras, Brahmans But RICH & POOR....

With enough money one can make even the most hard nosed orthodox people their friends....The book also shows the Britishers during the tumultuous time of pre-partition...How communism & trade unionism was on rise, how they despised Gandhi & how they might have stoked the great Hindu-Islam divide in India....

The book correctly establishes Mulk Raj Anand as one of the most foremost of English novelists from India probably ranking along with Nirad C. Chaudari, Rabindranath Tagore, Michael Madhusudan Dutt and others...

I would rate this book among the best which i have read....5/5

[Vindhya (unironic em dash user) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I have seen the world of the rich, and it does not seem to be any better than the world of the poor.” Such a compelling fictional account of life in colonial India for the average Indian. To think this was only Mulk Raj Anand’s second work! A true genius!

[Ram · Rating 5 out of 5]

For book lovers from India, there are some few writers who are must read for them considering the kind of role the writers have played in Indian writing over the decades and also considering the quality of their writings. Rabindranath Tagore, R.K. Narayan, Kamala Markandeya are a few of the names that comes to my mind. Add to that the name of Mulk Raj Anand, one of the finest writers of India. His book "Coolie" is a seminal book in Indian literature. Coolie depicts the life of an young boy who dreams of a life in the hills, but is forced to travel out of his village to earn a living as a domestic help, porter, factory worker & rickshaw driver which is basically foot rickshaw. There are pages filled with poverty, filth, loss of dignity, abuse by employers, calling of names in the sense that the early pages of the book is one unending story of depression following deprivation. But slowly the beauty of Mulk Raj Anand emerges in the way he surreptitiously heaps scorn on the ruling polticial class of that time - the Britishers and their cahoots in pre-Independence India. It is an absolutely savage book on par with Kamala Markandeya's "Nectar in a Sieve". The final pages of the book guts you like a sledge hammer. Absolutely highly recommended must read by every Indian book lover.

[Tanvika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone who is willing to look at the lives of the majority of mankind needs to read this story.this living tale will fill the reader with the way the poor since birth live and the way they disappear with little concern by the other human beings. the wrath, insults,humiliation, great rage, fatalism, blind faith on god, the mental slavery defines the workers life. The visual depiction of the coolies as sweating, dusty bodies, the factory as a dark dungeon , of big cities , rich elites, pavements is striking and occupies a corner in your mind. I think the current situation for the worker is not different from the one mentioned by Anand.
Kindly read this heart wrenching , brutally direct journey of Munoo,the coolie.

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mulk Raj Anand, Peshawar 1905-2004 !

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

This book "written 1935 in London; revised 1971 in Sukhrali, Gurgaon, Haryana, India", published 1972.
[Another of his novels is "Untouchable", publ. 1935.]

Munoo is an orphan [cared for by an aunt who resents doing it] in a hill-country village KANGRA in "the north" i.e. Punjab. His parents died of grief after landlord seized their land, leaving them destitute.

We follow his journeys and different forms of horrifying "coolie" employment for one year, until Munoo dies of consumption at age 15. Heart rending, yet I believe it must be very very accurately described, and so we can learn a lot from this book.

"A study in destitution"
"India seen third-class"
"Anand's social angers"

Seems to me the author wants to show us the real-life suffering of the masses of working Indians, and the details of their severe exploitation by fellow Indians [and occasionally by English colonials] - by moneylenders, shopkeepers, factory owners, overseers.

There are bits of humor and lots of bits of human compassion in between all the cruelty.

Half the novel is in Bombay, where Northerners [like Munoo] seek out each other and share each other's poverty.
Two friends Munoo makes [in Bombay and later in Simla] are labor union organizers, giving the author a chance to show something of this aspect. We see English and Parthans and factory owners agreeing to brutally suppress the union movement.

We see the deeply engrained submissiveness of nearly all the lower classes, never demanding but rather begging for a living wage, asking for pity, but never asserting their rights.
Munoo is intelligent and had 5 years of school, so can read and write, and he tries to discuss things reasonably. But the result is not much different.
The author assigns Munoo to the 2nd highest caste by birth [Kashtrya] presumably so we cannot blame his low caste for his ill treatment.

One incident:
Someone in a crowd shouts that a child has been kidnapped, another shouts it was done by Muslims, so the Hindu crowd goes on a rampage killing Muslims. And vice versa.

Intro by Saros Cowasjee:
"Anand is a political novelist: he sees his characters and their actions in relation to India, and often in relation to the world outside India."
Anand shows good-hearted [as well as evil-acting] people of all classes and colors, i.e. "the blame is not put squarely on the Whites or the Browns".

[Richa Bhattarai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember this as being incredibly sad and painful to read. Munoo, the protagonist, lives a tortured life.

[Aju Krishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

After completing this book, I placed Mulk Raj Anand among my favorite Indian writers in English. Coolie invokes a myriad of emotions, the greatest among them being humility and thankfulness for all the luxuries that god has bestowed upon us. For Munoo the future was bleak and uncertain, and education a far cry. Just at the cusp of boyhood, Munoo was sent away to work as a servant in the house of a rich baboo. He admires the baboo's children who go to school. He wonders at the 'Memsahibs' and 'Marchants' who spend all the money they have to dress up and go to party to meet people whom they don't like to meet. I too believe that charity is what comes when one is done with his responsibilities towards one's kins, or who tries to happily shirk that duty. There is no love among the rich, only false pretenses and greed. It is the poor who love unconditionally. Just like the poor beggar sharing his scanty meal with his beloved dog. This book also reminds us of the sweat and toil of innumerable coolies, upon whose hardwork the nation is built.

[Nikhil Silveira · Rating 3 out of 5]

lover of your sister - translitterations galore - could be forgiven considering Mr Anand lived in an era where English was still considered a province of the WASP Anglo-Saxon and the vernacular pride hadn't evolved beyond the general pride resulting from the freedom struggle.

In today's environs much of the nativity would have found it's way into the text directly, instead of the seemingly apologetic trans-litteration that litters this book. Detracts to an extent from the prose.

Nor is the makeup or development of Munnoo the coolie explored in much depth. Promising. Disappointing.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An educational and interesting look into colonial India of the 1930s. Fascinating to see what has changed in today's India, and most importantly what has not. Recommended.

[Raj Nandani ( Wrap the Fury) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A raw depiction of the poverty and condition of child labour as well as other labour classes during pre-independence era. Although the country is independent now, the condition is not much different than what it used to be.

While reading that book, I realised that even today many of the labourers are getting less than minimal wages and working in harsh conditions. Many of them still have their daily wages as low as the price of the book I was reading. The conditions have changed but the social class of wealth and caste is still their, replaced by new pallbearers instead of the previous ones.

The lively spirit of our protagonist Munoo is simply infectious. I found myself in high spirited just by the simple pleasures he enjoyed while leaving in apex poverty. The story begins and ends with a child's point of view along with omniscient description about other situations that went unnoticed by the child, unknown to the atrocities of the world, even though he has been witnessing one since his childhood. The hope in the characters mind seeps through the pages.

A must read book if I must say.

[Anushka Khatnani · Rating 4 out of 5]

History Fiction has always been a love for me. Reading about the lives of people at the time of Independence and somehow connecting it with the stories of our parents and grandparents is one of my favorite things to do. Author has however done justice on his work of displaying Munoo's life as a young "fifth pass" boy who aspired to become like one of the "babus" or "sahibs" who wore English suits and had a luxurious life. In his journey from hills to Bombay and then to Simla, Munoo experienced everything. Being surrounded by 100s of people and still feeling so alone, this story made me realize that the life of an orphan is never easy. In this journey which consisted all the emotions from pain, sympathy, happiness and adventures I loved this book thoroughly.

[Shelley Diamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book impressed me even more than Anand's other classic "Untouchable". Both are excellent, but I think "Coolie" will stick in my memory because there was so many abusive situations that the young man survived and because there were also so many kind people who helped him at various points in the story. If those kind people had not intervened, he would have died at an even earlier age. He was in so many terrible situations that it was a relief when he died. I didn't want him to suffer any longer. This is the kind of book that makes you feel it's a privilege to not live in agony from morning till night. This young man lives a life of torment just because he happens to be born into a poor family. He's not an untouchable caste, but he's poor, and people from even the highest caste can be poor.

[Vishwanath Praveen · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Coolie’ would be an obvious choice for readers who wish to understand how life in pre-independent India was for people who occupied the bottom most rung of the society.
This is the second Mulk Raj Anand novel I read, the first being Untouchable.
It tells the story of a 14year old village boy Munoo and the plight he suffers at the hands of the ‘dignified’ members of the society who make up the upper crust.
Munoo is orphaned after the death of his mother and is brought up by his uncle. No sooner than he turns 14, he is seen as a burden by his irate aunt and forced to eke out his own living. He is sent to work in a ‘Babu’s’(government official) bungalow as a servant. The lady of the house despises his presence and denies him even the most basic right. One such instance where Munoo is forced to control his urge to answer the call of nature really instills a sense of disgust in the reader. The abominable treatment he receives there forces him to flee to Daulatpur in hopes of finding a better life. Things get even worse and he is subjected to endless misery. When Munoo sees no prospect of survival he goes to the ‘City of Dreams’, Bombay. The city is different from small towns only in size and splendor but not in the way it treats its not-so-fortunate citizens.
Bombay is seen as a microcosm of the Indian society at large. British citizens who viewed educated Indians as second class citizens and they in turn meekly accepting the fact with servile flattery. The most striking resemblance between the two groups was their conformance to the belief that the poor existed only to be trampled upon.
By a cruel turn of events Munoo is forced to leave Bombay and reaches Shimla where the novel reaches a tragic end.
The novel paints a vivid picture of the Indian society in pre-independent India and that picture isn’t all that pretty for the downtrodden. Munoo and other characters of his social status are intelligent and self-aware but society places a burden so heavy that these qualities decrease exponentially over time. As you progress into the novel you are given insights into the tyranny of the caste/class system, exploitation of the poor by rich and the social, moral and economic consequences it has on the society. The story does not really have a ‘quintessential’ good individual but rather the goodness in a few individuals which springs up now and then. But these instances are far too few in number rendering the poor helpless.
Indians might take pot-shots at slavery that existed in US before the civil war. We should be ashamed by the fact that we too had one which was better evolved than theirs and this system did not produce slaves but ‘Coolies’, a whole new class of people pushed to sub-human existence.
Munoo stands testimony to this fact. His quest for identity and search for freedom sadly remain unfulfilled.

[Prabhat sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coolie by Mulkraj Anand- Novel- Young Munoo is happy. An orphan being raised by his aunt and uncle, he enjoys going to school and playing amid the gently rolling Kangra Hills (Himachal Pradesh, India) around his native village of Bilaspur. When Munoo is 14, however, his uncle tells him he can no longer afford to provide for Munoo; the time has come for the boy to earn his way in life. The boy has little education and no employable skills. The uncle takes the boy to the nearby town of Sham Nagar, where he is indentured as a house servant to a middle-class bank clerk and his family. Although the banker treats the boy with some kindness and a degree of compassion, his wife mercilessly overworks the boy, humiliates him at every turn, and insults and degrades him. Munoo finds a friend in the couple’s young daughter, Sheila, who is entertained by Munoo’s monkey dance, an improvisational routine in which the boy apes the appearance and mannerisms of a monkey. One day, in the course of playing, Munoo gets carried away with his monkey routine and accidentally bites at the girl. The parents, appalled by the boy’s transgression, beat him mercilessly. Terrified, the boy runs away and steals a ride on a train, ending up in the city of Daulatpur about two hours east. On the train, he encounters Prabha Dayal, a kindly man who runs the town’s sprawling chutney factory. Prabha and his wife take in the runaway and offer Munoo a safe and comfortable home. Prabha gives Munoo work in the factory. The conditions are unpleasant: The factory stinks of organic waste and the factory floor offers little ventilation. The work is hard, the hours are long, and the pay is pittance. When Prabha’s own business partner, the reptilian Ganpat, schemes to defraud the business, the scheme collapses, and Prabha is left to face creditors with no cash reserves. He is ruined, and the factory is closed. Munoo is back on the streets, struggling to find a place to sleep among the homeless, the indigent, and the diseased. He sees colorful posters advertising a circus that is passing through on its way to Bombay. Munoo believes in his naïve heart that the fabulous city is key to his salvation. Falling in with the traveling circus, Munoo, working for a stint with the elephant keeper, arrives in Bombay full of expectations. He is immediately taken aback by the sheer size, the noise, and the confusion of the city. He sleeps on the streets. Work is hard to find, the city teeming with unemployed and unskilled coolies. Munoo secures entry-level work at a massive cotton mill factory owned by a British expatriate. The mill is run by a brutal foreman who relishes mistreating, harassing, and even physically abusing the coolies, a pejorative term for the country’s hordes of unskilled labor. The conditions in the factory are hellish. The hours are long, the factory floors are sweltering, and the air is thick with cotton fluff. Munoo falls under the compelling spell of Ratan, a burly worker, a former wrestler, who agitates openly and vociferously for the rights of the coolies and preaches the need for the exploited workers to strike for better conditions. When Ratan is summarily dismissed with little provocation, the workers protest. In the ensuing riots that erupt in the streets around the factory, Munoo, terrified at the violence and the chaos, is separated from Ratan. Munoo is suddenly lost in the city. In a curious intervention of chance, Munoo, now wandering the streets without work and without a home, is hit by a touring car in which rides Mrs. May Mainwaring, a wealthy woman who, although half Indian, cultivates her image as a refined aristocratic British lady. Mrs. Mainwaring, disturbed over the accident, takes in Munoo. He finds himself in her estate in Simla, more than two days’ drive north of Bombay in the foothills of the Himalayas. He is given work pulling the ladyship’s rickshaw through the steep streets of the town. The work is taxing, but Munoo is grateful for it and relishes the familiar sight of the nearby mountains. At that point, however, he begins to show the telling signs of tuberculosis: fatigue, a high fever, and a bloody cough. In short order, despite Mrs. Mainwaring’s solicitous care, Munoo dies. He is just 15 – year old. The novel explores the harsh role of chance in the lives of the poor. Evaluated as a traditional novel—that is, a plotted, designed construction in which events carefully work to make inevitable the move into the next event—Coolie suffers because Anand elects to reflect the reality of the world of the downtrodden coolies, a dark world ruled by the blind intervention of chance. Coolies are powerless. Munoo, just a boy, exerts no control over what happens to him. His father dies of a broken spirit after he loses the tiny family farm; his mother dies from exhaustion and overwork; Munoo accidentally, even playfully, bites the daughter of the accountant who gives him work; Munoo just happens to meet Prabha and his wife on the train, and they take in Munoo because they just happen to have suffered a miscarriage; Prabha’s business partner schemes to defraud the investors in the chutney factory that in turn costs Munoo his job; Munoo, wandering the streets, happens to see the exotic posters advertising the circus heading to Bombay; the hut where Munoo lives in Bombay happens to be destroyed by a monsoon storm; he happens to be struck by Mrs. Mainwaring’s touring car; and, in the end, he happens to contract the bacterial virus that kills him. Since its publication in 1936, Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Coolie has become a landmark in modern Indian literature. The novel condemned the social, economic, and cultural impact of more than two centuries of British occupation and indicted India’s own rigid caste system, which had long separated its citizens into groups based on their work status and their ethnicity. The novel appeared at the height of a turbulent decade in which India itself, under the moral leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, began to agitate for its independence and, in the process, struggled to define itself. Because Anand was among the first prominent Indian authors to introduce the idioms and patois of India’s indigenous people into otherwise English-language writing, Coolie secured a place in 20th-century Anglo-Indian literature.

Much like the social realist novels of Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck, writers to whom Anand (1905-2004) was compared, Coolie aims to awaken awareness to the plight of the underclass, the suffering and the indignities of life below the poverty line, and the generations, uneducated and unskilled, exploited by the wealthy and denied even the expectation of improving their lot. In telling the story of the life and death of a 14-year-old orphan named Munoo, an uneducated boy from the hill country of north central India who works his short life to secure gainful employment and a living wage, Anand offers a portrait of the struggle to assert one’s dignity and humanity amid poverty, hunger, and disease.

[Nabeel · Rating 5 out of 5]

To a reader who, as a member of the South Asian diaspora, has never had more than an amorphous grasp of the region's history, Mulk Raj Anand vividly animates the world that existed therein during the twilight of the British Raj. "Coolie", an extraordinary tale of a common village orphan, illuminates with touching clarity the state of affairs in pre-partition India that is all too often fogged over with romanticist nostalgia.
The reader sees this world through the simple eyes of Munoo, the tragic archetype of his age and era, but nonetheless is afforded a panoramic view of that world itself - from the blazing furnaces of the coal-powered factories, to the dry croaking of the wheels on the tonga, to the swarming buzz in the fruit market. One lives alongside munoo on his journey from a village to the town and then eventually to the urban madhouse of Bombay, all the while absorbing the most minute but significant details that really bring the whole story to life, and provide a touching backdrop to the human drama that unfolds along the journey.
Lucidly written, beautifully grand, and touchingly intimate, Coolie is a masterpiece of modern storytelling.

[Shinuna Said · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel effectively depicts the sufferings of labourers through the story of Munoo, the protagonist. Munoo, an orphan brought up by his uncle begins the journey of his life from his village and going through many places say various stages of miseries, dies of consumption in the end. The portrayal is so realistic that it gives one a true picture of the conditions the workers live in - the depiction of nauseating surroundings, dirty lanes, labourers relieving in the open fields etc. The story of the novel covers many dark aspects like voluptuousness, communalism, hypocrisy, misuse of religion etc. Activities of the characters are so naturally depicted that they seem to be materialized. As for language, the dialogues are quite appropriate considering the characters. They make the narration even more natural.Summing up, Coolie is an excellent depiction of the troubles faced by the exploited working class.

Source: http://www.shvoong.com/books/469213-c...

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you probably know, Anand was an Indian who lived for roughly the entire 20th century and gained an international reputation for his bleakly realist social commentary novels written in English. This is his second of five novels.
Although his usual biography states that he was moved to write by the inequities of the Indian caste system (his first novel was called Untouchable), it strikes me that his communist engagement in the 30s and 40s causes him at times to more broadly characterize the problem simply as the oppression of the poor by the rich. Certainly the subtleties of the caste system are somewhat lost on the early adolescent rural protagonist here who finds himself systematically exploited by anyone with a crumb more power or money than he has (which is just about everyone).

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a 'feel-good' read, but it is fascinating and well-written.

It is a heart-rending description of a young boy's suffering as he moves from one place to another in India in search of work and shelter.

It may be an unfair criticism but when I read this book as well as Untouchable, I felt that the Indian author, who had received his university education in England, was writing for an English audience rather than for Indians. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this, but I felt that I was reading an English author rather than an Indian one.

[Suraj B · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading RK Narayan's novel, I became accustomed to the slow paced books. Yet another book of the similar type, Coolie, was also from my college library. Mulk Raj Anand is simply superb in creating such an image where it sometimes makes us hate life. I was literally living with the characters when I read the book. Their sufferings, and the arrogance of those with money all were not just written, but painted. Yeah, this one's a good book.

Verdict: A nice book to read, though you might wanna collect some patience for reading slow pace books.

[Phani · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's not much here that we don't already know, and one does feel every now and then that the author manipulates the characters/plot to elicit more sympathy from the reader. Some of the characters seemed almost Bollywood-ish (Ratan, for instance). One can see that Anand was moved by the poverty he saw around him, which is why he wrote this book. All in all, a good read, but nothing exceptional.

[Vinod · Rating 5 out of 5]

of all Indian authors, i love Mulk Raj Anand the best. it shows the pre-independence India from an Indian perspective. most british authors revile or pity at being Indian. but Mulk does it the other way around. he sees the Indian way of life and its hardships and its boundaries. a sad ending to this book. a story of the still continuing saga of child labor, exploitation and abuse in India and its lack of security for the poor.

[Akshay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coolie portrays the adventures of a young sixteen year old boy Munoo. Munoo, at best, is like a universal figure who represents a passion not only for India but also the human race. The story of Coolie is a fight for basic survival that shines through with a raw sense of urgency while also highlighting the grim fate of the masses in a pre-partition India. Mulk Raj Anand's picture of Munoo is real, comprehensive and subtle.

[Śrī · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, Mulk Raj Anand establishes himself as the Indian Charles Dickens. In a very Dickensian plot, a young man is ripped from the stable, clean and yet smothering world of rural poverty and deposited in the volatile, grimy and explosive world of urban poverty. Munnoo, or Coolie, as he comes to be known never gets his deliverance like either Oliver Twist or Pip, however. That is the difference between economical inequities created by industrialisation and those created by colonialism.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anand hung out with the cool kids of Bloomsbury for some years before snubbing that scene. Interestingly, he consciously imitated Joyce's Portrait and envisioned himself as a Stephen/Joyce figure forging the consciousness of India in the smithy of his soul. Untouchable and Coolie are terrific reads and offer very interesting commentary on Indian gender/caste constructions.

[Neha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't finish reading this book.
After Mulk Raj Anand's 'Untouchable', I had very high expectations set with this one. Read half way through but couldn't push my self further.
The book isn't unworthy but keeps a pace too slow to have me reading.

[Ankush Agrawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read. Initially started to read for the college assignment purpose, but then was intrigued by the young character's trials and harships and his hard life. What a vivid picture potrayed by the author. Didnt know India did have such gems of a writer...

[Abhishek Sood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Coolie. M.R. Anand sahib detailed the landscape, scenes very well. I went back to the time of story and envisioned myself amongst all the characters. It soaked me completely. Loved it.

[Siddhartha]

creates a memorable character Munoo, through him we look into the plight of the poor in the British times. The novel also gives a glimpse into the lives of the Britishers, different from the stereotypical images we have been receiving through Bollywood movies all the time.

[Chirantan Goswami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exceptionally well written and told by mulk raj anand. Great to read.

[Mansi Saini]

real picture of post colonial india..................