Munoo is the central
figure in the novel. He is a boy of fourteen, living under the shadow of the
ill-treatment of his uncle and aunt. Despite all this, he is content with the
idyllic happiness. He grazes his cattle plays with companions and enjoys
the juicy mangoes. However, he has seen the people dying of hunger and
starvation. He knew how his father died a slow death of bitterness and
disappointment and his mother passed, her life in grinding grains. He had also
heard that his father’s five acres of land were seized by the landlord because
he could not pay the interest on the mortgage due to scanty rains and the bad
harvest. The most horrible was the sight of his mother’s death. “The sight of
her as she had laid dead on the ground with a horrible yet set expression on
her face” had sunk into his subconscious with all its weight of tragic and
utter registration.
Munoo has been taken
from the village to the town of Sham Nagar by his uncle to work as a
servant in Babu Nathoo Ram’s house. The ill-treatment which he receives in the
house of Babu Nathoo Ram is more harrowing than he received at the hands of his
uncle and aunt. Babu Nathoo Ram is a Sub-Accountant in the branch of Imperial Bank
of Sham Nagar. His mistress is a shrewish, quarrelsome woman, who employs the
boy at Rs. 5 per month. She ill-treats Munoo. She takes hard work from him. He
was engaged in the work from morning till night. She gives him very poor
quality food to eat, sometimes stale food. He is practically starved. Babu
Nathoo Ram always showered torrents of abuses and curses on his head without
rhyme or reason. They also beat him severely. When he complains to his uncle,
he instead of showing love and sympathy for the boy beats him mercilessly and
he even does not give him any money to take food. His uncle said to him that he
had neither money nor sympathy for him. Hence he threw him out of the house.
He was so badly treated that he had hatred for him. There is none in his life
now. He is alone and alone only and he runs away from his callous and
inconsiderate uncle and his mistress.
Munoo has left the
hellish place of Sham Nagar and come to Daulatpur. This is the next phase of
his life. This place also could not evaluate him and he is again in the grip of
heavy circumstances. He is employed in a pickle factory the owner Prabha Dayal
and his wife have a soft corner for the boy but Ganpat, the other co-partner of
the factory treats him badly and because of his bad character he cheats on
Prabha Dayal and he is reduced to beggary the pickle factory is sold out, and
subsequently Munoo is fated to work as a coolie — which, means mere beast of
burden—first in the grain market and then in the village market. In the market, he saw the naked starving conditions of the coolies who are competing with one
another for jobs at extremely low wages. The suffering of Munoo and the other
coolies is harrowing. In fact, they are reduced to the level of beasts.
Munoo is paid
very low wages in the vegetable market and he sees here that there is stiff
competition from numerous starving coolies like him. After that, he tries his
luck at the railway station but he had no license which is required for every
coolie. The police make him go away and he runs away in terror and a
kind-hearted elephant driver comes to his help. He then reaches Bombay with the
help of the elephant driver.
While sojourning in Bombay; Munoo came across
the lepers, the beggars, the sick and the dying and the wretched condition of
the workers and the coolies. They are all degraded and demoralised. They cringe
before Jimmie Thomas because they are afraid of being dismissed from the job.
They also give commissions and fruits to him to make their jobs secured
in the factory they have to tolerate bitter humiliation. They also cringe
before the baniya from whom they purchase provision on loan, and hence their
exploitations by all possible crooked ways are at the zenith.
The
last phase of Munoo’s life is spent in Simla where he is employed as
page-cum-rickshawpuller of Mrs. Main waring. He has not only to do domestic
work but also to pull her rickshaw, whenever the memsahib would like to go or
wherever she wants to go. Besides, she also uses him sexually. Hence his health
is aggravated and he begins to cough out blood. And finally, he dies in the
arms of his friend Mohan at the age of sixteen. His miserable life comes to an
end as a welcome release.
The misery of Munoo is the misery of millions of Munoo in India. The life history of Munoo is full of miseries. He finds no silver lining in the dark cloud. He is beaten from pillar to post, is overworked and humiliated, and treated merely as a beast of burden till he dies in the bloom of life due to hunger, suffering and disease. Munoo is a universal figure, than life character, and he represents the suffering and starving millions of the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment