Coolie

The impish monkey dance that Munoo performs for Sheila, the eldest daughter of the accountant, symbolizes how thoroughly the caste system had dehumanized the coolie class and how ingrained the conceptions of that system have become. When Sheila plays with Munoo in the kitchen and in the gardens, Munoo innocently believes that somehow, across the boundaries of the caste system, he and Sheila are friends. They are the same age, they laugh at the same silly things, and it is Sheila who first approaches Munoo to play. To entertain his new friend as well as the other kitchen coolies, Munoo, when he hears music coming from the kitchen, bursts out one morning into a spontaneous sort of crazy dance: “Munoo was still rapt, dancing with awkward, silly movements, making faces, showing his teeth, rolling his eyes and shrieking like a real monkey” (22). For the boy, the dance is a joyous expression of his “zest for life, his fire” (50). For the Ram family, however, it is great sport, a hilarious send-up of the idea that coolies are animals. Quickly, the dance becomes Munoo’s brand. He happily plays into the stereotype of coolie.