Why Did You Go Overseas?

A Recruit

Il était de Tanjore,

Aventurier de l’or

Et tambour-major

 

He was from Tanjore

An adventurer seeking gold

And a drummer.

Khal Torabully, Chair Corail, Fragments Coolies

 

Come, you from the Grand Peninsula

Into the small isle of France.

Come to dance the immense twilight,

To purify your face and your senses.

Here is Money island Rupee island.

 

Just lift a stone and be rich.

Here the master is a friend

Come for all the gold of Dwipa Aropi.

 

The envoys told me

Come to Mauritius

And take Savannah and the Gunner’s Quoin

 

To cover the ocean of the Indies

Our vessel will glide ten days only,

Nearer to you than the beat of blood.

The ocean? Worry not : sweet like the lover

When our vessel will reach the last breakers.

 

And I knew after two moons in drowning

Time was the consumption of times.

And I anchored in Durban, Dina Morgabine,

Singapore, Fiji, the West Indies, in the dust of waves.

To be scattered in the gales of continents.

In the currents of colonies.

Khal, Cale d’Etoiles, Coolitude

Some came with dreams of milk-and-honey riches,

Fleeing famine and death:

Dancing girls,

Rajput soldiers, determined, tall,

Escaping penalty of pride.

Stolen wives, afraid and despondent,

Crossing black waters,

Brahmin, Chammar, alike,

Hearts brimful of hope.

 ‘They Came In Ships’ by Mahadai Das

 

The Many-faced Recruit

Je suis chamar des plaines du Gange Pallan Palli

Déjà esclave du Canara –

A Andhra je ployais sous le joug du Misradar Tiouurel

Prêt a quitter la terre brûlée de Meerut

Je me déclarai aventurier assoiffé de l’or des colonies

Pour me consumer dans les cannaies de Saint Alary

Je suis le mutin des révoltes des Sipayes

Le brahmane vaincu du royaume d’Oude

 

I am a chamar from the plains of the Ganges Pallan Palli

Already a slave from Canara

At Andhra I struggled under the yoke of Misradar Tiourel

Ready to leave the burnt earth of Meerut

I declared myself an adventurer, thirsty for the gold of the colonies

To be consumed among the canes of Saint Alary

I am the mutineer from the Sepoy Revolt

The vanquished Brahmin from the kingdom of Oudh

1. Torabully, Chair Corail, Fragments Coolies, p. 53

 

Folksongs

Oh recruiter, your heart is deceitful,

Your speech is full of lies!

Tender may be your voice, articulate and seemingly logical,

But it is all used to defame and destroy

The good names of people.7

 

A song from Fiji curses the arkatis, or subordinate recruiters:

I hoe all day and cannot sleep at night,

Today my whole body aches,

Damnation to you, arkatis

 

Born in India, we are prepared to go to Fiji,

Or, if you please, to Natal to dig in the mines.

We are prepared to suffer there,

But brothers! Don’t make us labourers here.

B.V. Lal, Girmitiyas

 

You have learned the legendary store

of men lost in the orchard of gales,

fallen in water like five black cents.

 

And the monsoon has reaped you in its ropes

when the last pagla of the village spoke

of a book as strange as a shipwreck.

Khal, Cale d’Etoiles, Coolitude

 

The Disenchanted Sepoy

Je suis une non-valeur

Inapte au travail de la terre

Sheik est mon nom grinçant contre la graisse

De porc dans les cartouches ennemies

Paria crachant la graisse de vache dans le barillet

D’Enfield.

 

I am without value

Unsuited for field labour

Sheik is my name, grimacing in the face of grease

Of pigs in the enemy’s cartridges

A Paria spitting cow’s grease into the barrel

Of an Enfield.

Khal Torabully, Chair Corail, Fragments Coolies

 

Escaping from Famine into Namelessness

J’étais d’Agamoudia de Cammalas de Pallys de Pallas

J’étais Sheikmoudine Sheikboudou

De Tottys de Vannias de Vellagas

J’ai fui la misère des paillotes de Fyzabad

De Cavares d’Ambalcacas

 

A la liste j’ajoute l’absence des pluies

A Rajpoutra Sourane

La raréfaction des grains ou disettes

D’Arcot de Tinnevely de Chinglepet

Et les archives des miettes

Qui me privèrent du combustible de mon nom.

 

I was from Agamoudia, Cammalas, of Pallys, of Pallas

I was Sheikmoudine Sheikboudou

Of  Tottys of Vannias of Vellagas

I fled the misery of the straw-huts of Fyzabad

Of Cavares of Ambalcacas

 

To the list I can add the drought

In Rajpoutra Sourane

The rarefaction of grain and famine

In Arcot in Tinnevely in Chinglepet

And the archives of dust

Which deprived me of the fuel of my name.

Khal Torabully, Chair Corail, Fragments Coolies

 

With no ransom

We deploy clouds

At random:

The first words fell

On the pebbles

On the dust

On the storms.

And my dove lost in a flash of lightning

Anchored my dreams in ether’s keel.

Anjali said the nave is a wrecker

Of our precipitated departures

Before the splayed handkerchief

Of a nail gobbler

Of a sabre swallower

Of an ember walker.

Khal Torabully, Cale d’Etoiles