Interrogating plantation class structure in literature

Rooplall Monar (Peepal Tree Press photo)
Rooplall Monar (Peepal Tree Press photo)

Every time Christmas season approaching me does always remember one particular Friday gone back when me was a small boy going to estate two-storey white, red and colour pay office.

This Friday self, last day befo’ school shut for the Christmas season, been full one year since they crown Elizabeth Queen in England and since then we had was to chant “God save the Queen” every morning instead of “God save the King”, and then after we praying “O Lord grant us this day our daily bread”, we singing “Rule Brittania, rule the waves, Britons never shall be slaves. . .”

Me tell you, is every manjack singing hymns and Christmas carols while Headmaster Williams swaying he cane on the stage with he eye close as though he conducting one music choir. And don’t talk how the chorus does raise high as though it want rip out the rusty roof which does rattle whenever hard breeze blow, while Smallie and Bertie in the back bench does mimic Headmaster when Teacher Johnson attention focus on stage. And don’t talk how Smallie and Bertie voice rusty and hoarse: true, it sounding like when you rubbing old rusty tin on concrete. And them picknie in fourth standard can’t mock or laugh else is baker-dozen if Teacher Johnson only see, or baker-dozen and kneel down if Headmaster Williams see.

Too besides, you can’t report that Smallie and Bertie does mock Headmaster during hymn singing, else if you ain’t gat Saltfish or Rommel fo friend, prepare fo take blows afternoon time from Smallie and Bertie if them a get one benching from Headmaster or Teacher Johnson. So pardna, though Smallie and Bertie and myself thick like konky, still me too does stifle me laugh in me throat like coal soon as Smallie and Bertie voice start to roar like rusty zinc.

Well, the week befo’ the Friday reach, them picknie inside light-light, as though they could fly like bird, specially when them mind flash on them fancy sweetie and cent and jill which they does scramble-up in Big Manager yard on that last Friday afternoon befo’ school close, just like when dog does fight among theyself fo food which been a throw to them from verandah-top while the Missie giggling.

And once them picknie getting sweetie and cent and jill, they ain’t care bout the bruise-up and kick-up and push-down they does get during the scrambling. Some time fight does break out, but is all in the fun once Big Manager Missie and them other manager missie throwing cent and jill.

Happen so, the Friday reach. . . . Well after school call-in one o’clock time, every picknie face brim with expectation. After Headmaster done announce that school gon reopen such an such a date after the Christmas holiday, and after he done send home them small picknie between ABC and third standard, he shout from the stage, “Get ready to march to the Administrative Manager’s yard”, as though we is a pack of mule and must jump to attention any time Headmaster roar, just like how he and Urmilla and Teacher Johnson does jump to attention up and say “Good day, sir,” as though Big Manager is Gawd and ahwe is the servant. But in today school, me children say all them mimicry and slavish attitude cut out since this country get freedom.

Well, bout three minute after headmaster and teacher fix we in two row inside school yard, where the sun ready to kill you with hotness me hear the sugar factory going chuck chuck chuck … and see the thick-thick black and blue smoke. Was heat to kill fo sure when we step on the red brick road which curve like snake and end up in Big Manager yard. You see during them days we didn’t have shoes and socks like today school children. Eh-eh, we was barefoot, so every time we foot drop on the brick which hot-hot we feel like cane stump boring we foot-bottom or baboon pimple chukchukin it.

This time them picknie craning they head fo see if Big Manager Missie and other missie on the verandah when they enter Big Manager yard, which look like one different world. Eh-eh, if you see them nice-nice flower and pave-in drive-way, and the grass mown level as though you could sleep on it, while Ismael and Routie, the gardener, bending low and tending the flower plant as though them flower plant is egg. Most time them old and feeble and shaking like leaf when they walking, but soon as cookie Mable shout at them as though she is Big Manager Missie, Ismael and Routie come to life, though you could hear they bone going crack-crack just like dry bamboo in hot sun.

“Order, children,” Headmaster shout while Teacher Johnson and Urmilla placing we in row again. This time you in riddle fo know where Teacher Johnson and Urmilla summon up all this vigour, and moving like athlete when they know them Missie watching them.

And pardna, me could remember when them white Missie been look like fairy whenever they smile while them furee-furee hair been look like when fowl does set. And they lip red like cherry and they look real tender, but me ain’t know how they been go look if they been wukkin like me daddy and mumma in backdam just fo three-four dollar when week up.

Well, every time ahwe done sing one carol, them Missie up in the verandah clapping, while ahwe who stand up on the lawn like soldier serious wonder for know what good them missie been do in they previous life fo live in them big house now with nice yard, servant, and na have to sweat in backdam through rain or sun even if they sick self like ahwe parents…

This time the hot sun dripping we body with sweat while Headmaster, Teacher Johnson and Urmilla wiping they face steady-steady. By time we done sing the British national anthem and chant “Long Live the Queen”, we feel as though we strength lef we body, but when we think bout the sweetie and cent and jill, we inside come lively.

After Headmaster deliver one short speech, everybody shout “Hip hip hurray…” then them two manager missie start throw down handful sweetie and cent and jill while they giggling

as though we is dog or carrion crow who gat fo fight fo the cent and jill and sweetie. And you should see the scrambling and fall-down and bruise-up while fancy-fancy sweetie and cent and jill dropping down like rain and them manager missie giggling and ahwe school picknie scrambling as though cent and jill is ahwe life.

This time Smallie and Saltfish like hog. True-true, if you see how they scrambling and fulling up they pocket and butting who in they way, eh-eh, you been think was bacchanal. “Hip hip hurray…”, sweetie and cent and jil dropping down like rain from them missie hand while them picknie behaving as though they want kill each other and them missie giggling just like how in them picture them Roman uses to giggle and shout hurrah hurrah while them slave and gladiator killing each other in the arena.

When me na able fo scramble fo more sweetie and cent and jill, me stand one side and watch the spectacle. And then it dawn on me true-true that the estate mule and oxen receiving better treatment and care and food then the sugar worker them, who punishing generation after generation, night and day, to make sure sugar profitable, and believe is they duty as the pandit and the imam does say.

And too beside, is ahwe parents sweat does fatten the manager and missie and they treating we worse than mule. True, water been settle in me eye and me been wonder fo know what wrong thing ahwe parents been done fo suffer so much, and what good thing them manager and missie been do fo live king-life.

And when me na able fo bear the spectacle no more, me slip out and tell meself that Gawd gat favourite among people, but whenever ahwe parents eye-open it gon be one different story, and they might see Queen and kiss-me-ass manager and missie in different light. And if me didn’t plunge in the canal by the Turn fo cool off me passion, me been go explode like bomb.

This short story, “Cent and Jill” by Rooplall Monar is an example of Guyanese literature at the time when the corpus of East Indian literature was truly developing. It follows a long history which may be traced back to Joseph Ruhomon in 1894 when the Indian consciousness received its most important inspiration.

There followed a mushrooming of cultural awareness in the first 40 years of the twentieth century, but it still took some time before the focus diversified from India as ancestral home and there emerged a literature that began to interrogate Guyanese society in both style and subject. This literature began to make its impact in the work of Sheik Sadeek, especially, but also Rajkumari Singh in the 1960s and 70s. (Singh’s protegee Mahadai Das was at first nationalistic but grew to be a foremost Guyanese female poet as an existentialist).

Rooplall Monar’s story was written in 1985 and published in the collection Backdam People by Peepal Tree Press in Leeds, England. Significantly, it holds the distinction of being the first work to be published by Peepal Tree, founded by Jeremy Poynting out of his research visit to Guyana at the time. The short story collection remains Monar’s best work to date. Another of his important fiction is the novel Janjhat, which, like Backdam People, is an outstanding study of the life, culture and traditions of the descendants of indentureship on the sugar estates of Guyana.

This story helped to fix the literature which had found its voice by the 1980s. It is a distinctly post-colonial work in the tradition of Guyanese social realism in fiction. At this time, it is very interesting to recall a short story set in the Christmas period in British Guiana in the early 1950s, “full one year after they crown Elizabeth Queen in England” and school children were taught to sing “God save the Queen”.

It was Monar’s own time at primary school. The boy narrator has begun to become aware of the colonial disparities of class and race; between the planter class and the folk, in the reign of the sugar plantations over the governed, and the colonial education system, which functioned as a loyal subject. All this is recalled with a great deal of anger. It remains one of Monar’s most memorable short stories, riveted in the vivid realisation that while his schoolmates were lost in the depths of colonial contempt, he had to dive into the cool waters of the canal “to cool off me passion”, otherwise he “been go explode like bomb”.