[nukkad] Coolie

[tcmceus <>]

Coolie

Outdated word
A remnant of colonial days
Alive and well in this day and age
In the railway stations all over the land
Where the Indus flows.

Emaciated
Tired with stringy muscles
Tendons straining with loads of trunks
Heaped on the head, shoulder, under arm

Fat woman with no mercy:
"Hey Coolie, take this bundle too, do you want
my husband to lift this?".

Coolie:
"Sorry Ma'am beg your pardon Ma'am go
ahead and place the bag on the suitcase on my
head and give me Junior's tricycle in my hand,
and the umbrella and tiffin boxes in the other one".

Whispers to himself:
"Must earn enough to buy rations get new
table fan it is such hot weather and some shoes
for my daughter who goes to school next week
and some medicines for my wife she does not
seem to keep well and pay the grocer for goods
bought at twice the cost because it was on credit".

Fat woman with no mercy:
"Hey Coolie, are you deaf? Go to the right and
up the flight of steps to the platform across the tracks
my darling brother will be there with his new car he
bought it with the loan my idiot husband got from
his office where he slaves for years on end he
has no spine not style like my brother".

Goods delivered, every last bag and package.

Fat woman with no mercy:
"Hey Coolie, are you mad? What do you want
what we had agreed on when you nearly dropped
the flower vase my darling mother gave us? Don't
bicker this will teach you to be more courteous
to people like me who are all kindness and generosity
wasted on coarse souls like you if you will make a fuss
I will complain to the Station Master and you will lose
your job".

In the evening the shift changes. Coolie all sweat soaked
exits railway station walks the 2 miles to home in
squalor of a hut community where his wife smiling waits
with his daughter with new school bag and dress some
food is at the table made of an upturned box all sit and
eat and are content.

It is night. All lie down on mats on floor where few feet
away raw offal flows.

In his dream Coolies sees the Fat woman with no mercy,
she seems to say, Hey Coolie ... '.

*

-- 
Arya-Holmes
Acufree.Com Inc
http://www.acu-free.com

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Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard To fetch her poor daughter a dress. 
When she got there, the cupboard was bare And so was her daughter, I guess...
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