Miguel street pdf free download

The Mystic Masseur tells the story of Ganesh and his journey from failed primary school teacher and masseur to author, revered mystic and MBE. Miguel Street, a very early novel, won the Somerset Maugham Award on its appearance in In Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became independent countries; Barbados followed in In the years leading up to these events, the history of the British West Indies was written largely by the British, the colonial power, who focused on the process of decolonization and the key local players involved.

After independence, local scholars also focused on the role of political leaders in the newly independent countries. To date, scholars have paid little attention to the impact of these events on the local populations of these islands. Decolonization and the Other: The Case of the British West Indies explores the local perspectives on, and reactions to, events by using West Indian literature to supplement the historical record.

Beginning in the s when local demands for political participation increased, through the process of decolonization, and into the early years of independence, West Indian writers used their life experiences to document local reaction.

West Indian literature first appeared in , when British publishers became interested in island authors and their novels. By using the novels to supplement the historical record, we can gain a better understanding of the process of decolonization and the early years of independence in the British West Indies. The plethora of commentary from highly respected voices in a broad cross-section of academic disciplines, which V.

Naipaul's death on 11 August elicited, ranged so widely, both cognitively and emotionally, that if a student of literature, unfamiliar with the Naipaulian era, read it all, they would have failed to make sense of the divergences. Count on Me. Count on Me Book Review:. The Lonely Londoners. The Lonely Londoners Book Review:. The Only Road. The Only Road Book Review:. The Enigma of Arrival.

The Enigma of Arrival Book Review:. The House on Mango Street. Half a Life. Half a Life Book Review:. A Turn in the South. A Turn in the South Book Review:. Ilustrado Book Review:. Telling Stories. Telling Stories Book Review:. A House for Mr Biswas. Author : V S Naipaul,V. The Mystic Masseur Miguel Street. Coco Miguel and the Grand Harmony. V S Naipaul.

V S Naipaul Book Review:. Great book, Miguel Street pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone. Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:. Hot An Area of Darkness by V. Hot A House for Mr. Biswas by V. Hot In a Free State by V. This year, things going be much much better. We go show those Englishmen and them. We saw next to nothing of him. He was working night and day. He get a third grade. His name going to be in the papers tomorrow.

I always say it, and I saying it again now, this boy Elias have too much brains. He was a good-for-nothing, but he wanted to see his son a educated man. They talked about everything but books, and Elias, too, was talking about things like pictures and girls and cricket. He was looking very solemn, too. Look for work? He wanted to be a doctor. I think I going to take that exam again, and this year I going to be so good that this Mr Cambridge go bawl when he read what I write for him.

It sounded like something to eat, something rich like chocolate. Elias moved back into the pink house which had been empty since his father died. He was studying and working. He is one of the brightest boys in Port of Spain. He was the cleanest boy in the street.

He bathed twice a day and scrubbed his teeth twice a day. He did all this standing up at the tap in front of the house. He swept the house every morning before going to school. He was the opposite of his father. His father was short and fat and dirty.

He was tall and thin and clean. His father drank and swore. He never drank and no one ever heard him use a bad word. Not everybody could be like Elias, you know. The boy Elias have nice ways too. I think I go be a sanitary inspector. I hear your father George uses to pay the sanitary inspector five dollars a month to keep his mouth shut.

Let we say you get about ten or even eight people like that. There, fifty, forty dollars straight. I really like the work. I think I want to be a sanitary inspector. You got to bribe everybody if you want to get your toenail cut. You could go to B. He tell me that the exams easier in Barbados. It easy, easy, he say. I got a khaki uniform with brass buttons, and a cap.

Elias wanted to beat me up the first day I wore the uniform. He was driving the scavenging carts. But I am not so sure now that he was mad, and I can think of many people much madder than Man-man ever was.

He never stared at you the way I expected a mad man to do; and when you spoke to him you were sure of getting a very reasonable reply. But he did have some curious habits.

He went up for every election, city council or legislative council, and then he stuck posters everywhere in the district.

These posters were well printed. At every election he got exactly three votes. Man-man voted for himself, but who were the other two? I asked Hat. Is a real mystery. Perhaps is two jokers. But they is funny sort of jokers if they do the same thing so many times. They must be mad just like he. Man-man never worked. But he was never idle. He was hypnotised by the word, particularly the written word, and he would spend a whole day writing a single word. One day I met Man-man at the corner of Miguel Street.

That again was another mystery about Man-man. His accent. In the afternoon he had gone round the block and was practically back in Miguel Street. I went home, changed from my school-clothes into my home-clothes and went out to the street. He was now halfway up Miguel Street. Then he squatted again and drew the outline of a massive L and filled that in slowly and lovingly.

I finish mine. They threw Man-man out. But nothing was missing. He remember everything. These people really bad-mind, you know. God make them that way. The only friend he had was a little mongrel dog, white with black spots on the ears. The dog was like Man-man in a way, too. It was a curious dog. It never barked, never looked at you, and if you looked at it, it looked away.

Man-man loved his dog, and the dog loved Man-man. One morning, several women got up to find that the clothes they had left to bleach overnight had been sullied by the droppings of a dog. No one wanted to use the sheets and the shirts after that, and when Man- man called, everyone was willing to give him the dirty clothes. Man-man used to sell these clothes. We in Miguel Street became a little proud of him.

Perhaps the death of his dog had something to do with it. The dog was run over by a car, and it gave, Hat said, just one short squeak, and then it was silent.

Man-man wandered about for days, looking dazed and lost. He no longer wrote words on the pavement; no longer spoke to me or to any of the other boys in the street. He began talking to himself, clasping his hands and shaking as though he had ague. Then one day he said he had seen God after having a bath. Seeing God was quite common in Port of Spain and, indeed, in Trinidad at that time. Ganesh Pundit, the mystic masseur from Fuente Grove, had started it.

Many rival mystics and not a few masseurs had announced the same thing, and I suppose it was natural that since God was in the area Man- man should see Him. He did this every Saturday night. He let his beard grow and he dressed in a long white robe.

He got a Bible and other holy things and stood in the white light of an acetylene lamp and preached. He was an impressive preacher, and he preached inanodd way.

He made women cry, and he made people like Hat really worried. These days you hear all the politicians and them talking about making the island self-sufficient.

Last night self, just after I finish eating? He show me father eating son and mother eating daughter. He show me brother eating sister and sister eating brother. That is what these politicians and them mean by saying that the island going to become self-sufficient.

But, brethren, it not too late now to turn to God. But the odd thing was that the more he frightened people the more they came to hear him preach. And when the collection was made they gave him more than ever. In the week-days he just walked about, in his white robe, and he begged for food.

He said he had done what Jesus ordered and he had given away all his goods. Man-man announced that he was a new Messiah. He say he going to be crucified one of these days. He going to crucify hisself. One of these Fridays he going to Blue Basin and tie hisself to a cross and let people stone him. But on top of our wonder and worry, we had this great pride in knowing that Man-man came from Miguel Street.

There were lots of men dressed in black and even more women dressed in white. They were singing hymns. There were also about twenty policemen, but they were not singing hymns.

When Man-man appeared, looking very thin and very holy, women cried and rushed to touch his gown. The police stood by, prepared to handle anything. A van came with a great wooden cross. It light light. Is the heart and the spirit that matter.

His English accent sounded impressive in the early morning. Leave it for Blue Basin. We walked to Blue Basin, the waterfall in the mountains to the northwest of Port of Spain, and we got there in two hours. Man-man began carrying the cross from the road, up the rocky path and then down to the Basin. Some men put up the cross, and tied Man-man to it. I forgive you. Man-man looked hurt and surprised. What the hell you people think you doing?

Look, get me down from this thing quick, let me down quick, and I go settle with that son of a bitch who pelt a stone at me. A bigger stone struck Man-man; the women flung the sand and gravel at him. Cut it out, I tell you. I finish with this arseness, you hear.

The police took away Man-man. The authorities kept him for observation. Then for good. At about ten an Indian came in his dhoti and white jacket, and we poured a tin of rice into the sack he carried on his back. At twelve an old woman smoking a clay pipe came and she got a cent.

At two a blind man led by a boy called for his penny. Sometimes we had a rogue. One day a man called and said he was hungry. We gave him a meal. That man never came again. I had come back from school and was in my home-clothes.

He wore a hat, a white shirt and black trousers. He say he want to watch the bees. You have done a good deed today. We watched the bees, this man and I, for about an hour, squatting near the palm trees. Sonny, do you like watching bees? I can watch ants for days. Have you ever watched ants? And scorpions, and centipedes, and congorees-have you watched those? Black Wordsworth. White Wordsworth was my brother. We share one heart. I can watch a small flower like the morning glory and cry.

You will know when you grow up. For four cents. Only calypsonians do that sort of thing. A lot of people does buy? And when B. Wordsworth left, I prayed I would see him again. About a week later, coming back from school one afternoon, I met him at the corner of Miguel Street. And now the mangoes are ripe and red and very sweet and juicy. I have waited here for you to tell you this and to invite you to come and eat some of my mangoes.

The yard seemed all green. There was the big mango tree. There was a coconut tree and there was a plum tree. He was right. The mangoes were sweet and juicy. I ate about six, and the yellow mango juice ran down my arms to my elbows and down my mouth to my chin and my shirt was stained. You think you is a man now and could go all over the place? Go cut a whip for me.

I went to B. I was so angry, my nose was bleeding. We went for a walk. We walked down St Clair Avenue to the Savannah and we walked to the race-course.

I felt like nothing, and at the same time I had never felt so big and great in all my life. I forgot all my anger and all my tears and all the blows.

I can spot Orion even today, but I have forgotten the rest. Then a light was flashed into our faces, and we saw a policeman. We got up from the grass. Wordsworth and I. You must keep that a secret. If you tell anybody, I will know, because I am a poet. I liked his little room. But it also looked lonely. Once upon a time a boy and girl met each other and they fell in love. They loved each other so much they got married. They were both poets. He loved words. She loved grass and flowers and trees.

And so the garden remained, and grew high and wild. Wordsworth, and as he told me this lovely story, he seemed to grow older. I understood his story. We went for long walks together. We went to the Botanical Gardens and the Rock Gardens.

We climbed Chancellor Hill in the late afternoon and watched the darkness fall on Port of Spain, and watched the lights go on in the city and on the ships in the harbour. He did everything as though he were doing it for the first time in his life. He did everything as though he were doing some church rite. I am writing a poem. This is the greatest poem in the world.

I will finish it in about twenty-two years from now, that is, if I keep on writing at the present rate. I just write one line a month. But I make sure it is a good line. So, in twenty-two years, I shall have written a poem that will sing to all humanity. Our walks continued. Drop your pin, and let us see what will happen. It comes. But of the greatest poem in the world I heard no more. I felt he was growing older.

One day when I went to see him in his little house I found him lying on his little bed. He looked so old and so weak that I found myself wanting to cry. I could see it clearly on his face. It was there for everyone to see. Death on the shrinking face. He looked at me, and saw my tears and sat up. Do you promise? Well, listen.

That story I told you about the boy poet and the girl poet, do you remember that? It was something I just made up. I left the house and ran home crying, like a poet, for everything I saw.

It had been pulled down, and a big, two-storied building had taken its place. The mango tree and the plum tree and the coconut tree had all been cut down, and there was brick and concrete everywhere. It was just as though B. Wordsworth had never existed. People were afraid of him because he was so silent and sulky; he looked dangerous, like those terrible dogs that never bark but just look at you from the corner of their eyes.

We is bosom pals, man. We grow up together. I know him good good, and if any one of all you touch me, I go tell Big Foot. We in Miguel Street were proud to claim him because he was something of a character in Port of Spain, and had quite a reputation. It was Big Foot who flung the stone at the Radio Trinidad building one day and broke a window. Then there was the time he got a job driving one of the diesel-buses.

He stood by to see that they did. They found him at Dock-site, with the bag half full of letters, soaking his big feet in the Gulf of Paria. You come like a postage stamp, man.

It was people like Big Foot who gave the steel-bands a bad name. Big Foot was always ready to start a fight with another band, but he looked so big and dangerous that he himself was never involved in any fight, and he never went to jail for more than three months or so at a time. Hat, especially, was afraid of Big Foot.

But no. It was on occasions like this that he prepared his sulkiest and grimmest face; and when you saw him beating a pan, you felt, to judge by his earnestness, that he was doing some sacred act.

We were sitting in a row, laughing and talking all during the film, having a good time. He lazily pulled out a knife from his trouser pocket, flicked the blade open, and stuck it in the back of my chair. Policeman son and priest son. Priests and them does have children? It seemed he was as much a terror as Big Foot. That is how he get so big, you know.

I meet a boy from Belmont the other day in the savannah, and this boy tell me that blows does make you grow. How you does let people give you stupidness like that? Like medicine. Three times a day after meals.

And hear Big Foot talk afterwards. She used to beat him too? That woulda kill him. Hat began working a small racket.

He had five of us going all over the district begging for chewing gum and chocolate.