–and feed on familiar food

By Hubert Williams
BOSTON, Massachusetts, Sept 26, 2017 — De ole peep’l u-sis tuh seh it most aptly: Dat wuh aint app’n in fawty (40) years duz app’n in waaan (1) day.

Thus it was that after being intellectually connected in Guyana, South America, since the 1970s (when I was young and he much younger), and maintaining communication over the years, Dr. Dhanpaul Narine and I finally met an ocean away from home – at the entrance of a Hindu Trimurti Temple in Queens, New York, on Sunday, September 17.

That is the nature of the diasporic phenomenon – peace, prosperity and comfort for many, in places far distant from the land of our birth.

This meeting was a poignant reminder of another – in Barbados November 2016 with Guyanese poet and novelist Param Sharma, who like Dhanpaul has followed my journalistic output for decades and has on file copies of articles going back to the 1960s – some of which even I had not kept.

It was providential that I was on the island when Param and Mrs. Shama, resident in California, came sailing on a cruiseship; and we spent the most entertaining half day together in my lush garden… our very first meeting.

When I and four family members arrived to meet Dhanpaul, he received us delightfully at the entrance to the Temple, giving an embrace to each member of the group, which included my elder sister Mrs. Walterine Sears (visiting from her home in London, UK), younger sister Mrs. Frances Griffith, of Brooklyn, her husband Charles and daughter Chantelle.

As is the custom when entering a Hindu temple, hats and shoes were shed and Dhanpaul led the way, through the ground floor, up a stairway and towards a dining area where a grand Guyanese feast was awaiting…. what might have been called a  mixture of Guyanese Indian and Creole dishes. We were welcomed and introduced to a number of people, including resident Pandit Chunelall and outstanding young scholar Dr. Kamini Doobay, an intellectual dynamo who had topped her class in  just about every subject.

When I looked at the rich fare, I was transported back to the pre-1960s land of our birth, the unity of our people and the sharing (mostly in villages, but also in urban centres) of cultural practices originating in Africa and India; as well as the friendships and shared dreams of African and Indian youths who sat in class together, competed intellectually, but celebrated one another’s successes; and participated in the various religious and other cultural practices.

I shared firm friendships with outstanding classmates like Dullin, Lutchman, Scotland, the Sankars; and exulted over “bringing first in class”.     Indian girls and boys delighted in also being able to sing non-Indian songs; and the Black boys and girls were also proficient in singing Indian songs. Going to see Indian movies was part of the general entertainment… and I had favourite Indian movie stars and lustily sang Indian songs.

I learnt much too; and it was from that long-ago recall that I presented snippets from two old Indian songs at Dhanpaul’s Temple.

In those times, we lived together, loved together, learned together, and grew together. Then came the 1960s; and at the same time that America was losing John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and other stalwarts in the ongoing struggle for sanity and human rights, British Guiana/Guyana was splitting apart, with many of its people beginning to scatter across the world.

If I were to tell some of today’s generation in Guyana about my pre-1960s experience,

their likely immediate response would be, “dem is ole-time days”.

But hope springs eternal… for some of today’s generation might well abandon these great foreign lands of hope and glory and return to help make Guyana peaceful, united and great.

I said years ago (and gave my reasons why) that “the Diaspora is a diminishing phenomenon”.

In the interest of our country, I hope I’m proven wrong… And based on our very warm welcome at the Queens Temple, there are signs I could be wrong – if such togetherness were transported back to Guyana.