THERE will be many Arrival Day Celebrations around the country today and tomorrow, which is a public holiday. In this feature article, I will share a few of my own personal experiences and knowledge about Indians in Guyana; some garnered from interviews which I did with East Indian Immigrants. During the 15 years I produced the radio programme series, “The Eighty Plus Club” on local radio, I had the good fortune of interviewing quite a number of East Indian Immigrants who came to British Guiana and laid down a future for themselves and their descendants. I have also had the opportunity to interview some second-generation Guyanese of Indian heritage from every level of the society, who related much of what they knew of their parents and grandparents.

I had the good fortune of growing up among many East Indians in the small East Bank Demerara community of McDoom, which was next to the highly Indian-populated Houston Sugar Estate, which was owned by the Vieira Family. In those pre-Independence years, I saw Indian culture and lifestyle very close-up on a daily basis. I was witness to many East Indian weddings and other ceremonies, also the mouth-watering aroma of curry and other Indian dishes titillated my nostrils regularly as the smoke from their ‘cow mouth’ and kitchens, gently sailed across the village, like the ships sailed from Calcutta to Demerara with their human cargo for 80 years.

There were the sounds of Indian drumming and others such as the early morning prayers from the village mosque which is still there. Interviewing East Indians, including those who came from India, for my “Eighty Plus Club” radio programme, was, therefore, no real challenge for me. Neighbours such as Beerwah and Rojan, a married couple and their children, were close and like family during my growing-up years at McDoom. In the very early years, the tiny village was initially owned by the McDoom Family, who later sold off house lots one by one. Mr. McDoom, who was of Indian Heritage, was well respected by the villagers; many of his children became lawyers.

There was an Immigrant who I interviewed at Guava Bush, Albion, on the Corentyne Coast, who was 110 years of age at the time; she told me during the interview that she was “disgust” and wanted to go. She had worked hard all her adult life on the sugar estate and had lived a very long life, so it was time to leave this life. However, her memory was still sharp as she related the work she did as a young woman on the sugar estate at Albion and of conflicts the workers had with the sugar overlords- that included riots in which people were killed. That East Indian Indentured Immigrant spoke of the recruitment centres in India, and the promises which were made to them; of going to a land for a better life. Some spoke about the weeks-long and arduous journey across the oceans. Some died on the ship during the journey and their bodies buried at sea.

Some of the Indentured Immigrants who spoke with me for my Eighty Plus Club show, related the processing which they went through on their arrival in Demerara, at what they referred to as, “The Crosby Office”, which was located just west of where the Pegasus Hotel now stands. Some of the stories told to me were intriguing. A 100-year-old who lived at Anna Regina related that he was a little boy when he came to British Guiana with his mother, who left her husband back in India: “Abee bin live ah one room ah estate logie. Dem white man mek me mooma go live wid wan strange man, so abee logie room gee to odda people. So, de man woh me mooma live wid, me gat fo’ call am ‘Bap’. Me nah bin like daa, ’cause me dadee deh ah India,” he recalled. He also spoke of the Africans who were brought to the Essequibo Coast from Barbados, and how they worked together in unity with the Indians at the Anna Regina Sugar Estate.

There was the story told of the father and son who had decided to accept the option to return to India after their five year Indentureship had concluded. Arriving back in their home village in India, there was no welcome from relatives and fellow villagers. “When abee ah walk in de village, ah so dem ah goh pan de opposite side, an’ dem a hawk an’ spit at abee. So abee come back to Guiana,” the man related.
Another intriguing story about Indentured East Indians to Guiana, was told to me by Sir Shridath Ramphal, when I interviewed him for another of my Radio Programme Series, “Personality Profile”. The internationally-known diplomat’s ancestor first travelled from India to Dutch Guiana (Suriname) after she refused the Sati practice of widows who were obliged to take their own lives by going on the funeral cremation pyre. Sir Shridath said that his ancestor was a strong young widow who refused the sati suicide custom and joined an Immigrant ship which sailed for Dutch Guiana (Suriname). “At the end of her five-year Indentureship, she returned to India hoping that she would be accepted back into her community. But she received even more severe rejection than she could bear, so she joined another immigrant ship with Indentured Indians sailing, this time to British Guiana,” said Sir Shridath Ramphal.

All of the Indentured East Indian Immigrants have now passed on, but the sacrifices they made to this country and the foundations for their descendants, will always be appreciated by their descendants who rose to the very top in their various fields of endeavour; Dr. Cheddi Jagan; the Luckhoo Brothers, including Sir Lionel; Dr. Mohammed Shahabadeen, Sir Shridath Ramphal, Dr. Yesu Persaud, Ms. Lyla Kissoon, Mr. Richard Ishmael, Bishop Benedict Singh, Mr. Rafiq Khan, Mr. Rohan Kanhai, Ms. Rajkumarie Singh, Mr. Toolsie Persaud, Mr. Joseph Singh, Mr. Sataur Gafoor, Sir Fenton Ramsahoy, Ms. Mahadi Dass, Mr. Balram Ragubir, Mr Ayube Hamid, Mr Gora Singh, Mr. Kayman Sankar, Pandit Harry Ramsaroop and a host of others including Dr. David Dabydeen, who a few years ago, made an amazing discovery which he shared with an audience at the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown; that a free African was one of the sailors on the first journey on the ship Hesperus from Calcutta to Demerara.

By-the-way, when last has this nation spoken of that two great long-distance, barefoot runners, Moses Dwarka and Harry Prowell? History sails on and like the ship that represents the Indian Arrival Day Monument, we must always remember the Ancestors.