Dear Editor,

DECEMBER 11 is the one hundredth birth anniversary of my father who left this world almost a quarter-century ago. He lived a simple life without financial fortune or political fame. He didn’t have much formal education, but he was remarkable; a guiding light to his children, and a role model of decency. I marvel about all he was and all he did. He gave his all in everything he set out to do in the estate. He loved his extended family; his uncles and aunts and their children, and his cousins. He selflessly shared whatever he could to help others, even when he was cheated of his own possessions. In spite of many adversities, like losing his mother in boyhood, and lack of a prestigious job, he was determined to succeed in life, and to raise a good family, because he had a great wife; my mother, a most resourceful and energetic woman.  My mother would work up to the day she gave birth, and back at the sewing machine the next day.
It is precious memory when I think of the life of my pa and ma, with me and my other siblings. The legacies that my father, his father, and his aja and aji left behind, and the helping hand that he gave among the large, extended family are not forgotten.

My father, whose ‘call name’ was ‘Baldat’, was well known in the greater Port Mourant area. He was a tailor, and he also came to be known by that ‘call name’. Before becoming a tailor, he was a salesman at Muneshwer’s in Haswell, next to Roop Mahal cinema; Muneshwer was my father’s first cousin, who was called Bhaiya, being the oldest male among dad’s dozens of cousins. (Muneshwer’s mother and my father’s dad were sister and brother; he called my aja “Mamu”).  My father was also a farmer, cultivating rice and sugarcane, and a cow herder. The hundreds of cows he attended were owned by the extended family of my par aja and par aji. People knew my father because of his many jobs and farming roots, and his father and aja. He helped with the family’s religious functions and weddings with cooking or “bhandara” preparation. He was not much into sports, but he liked horse racing, and he did ‘play ball’ with Cheddi Jagan and his brothers, (Oudit and Derek), as they lived near each other’s cottage. My parents immigrated to NY in March 1977, when they were already past half-a-century, and worked at factories to help provide for the family and home ownership.

Baldat was born in Ankerville, across the trench (Side line) from Bound Yard, where my mother and her siblings were born, and where my eight ancestors from India were bounded. He was the second son of Mahadeo (one name), who was better known as Barkha Bhai (big brother). His siblings were Ramrattan, Eva, Baliraj and Simbhudas. Mahadeo was the eldest son of my par-aja (great grandfather) Ghurbatore (his only name also), who came to British Guiana along with my par-aji (Amru Rai) on the same boat as indentured labourers. Ghurbatore and Amru’s five children were born in Plantation Port Mourant, as were all 12 children of Baldat and my mother, Gladys, a seamstress, who, in January, will complete a fine innings of 93, with fading memories of life in the homeland.

I have fond memories of my growing up, and of his life, his contributions to the village, and of raising his children. He was a member of the Port Mourant cane co-op, and volunteered his labour for cultivation and harvest. His youngest daughter, Zenita, died while a baby. His eleven other children, Kapa, Gama, Kamin, Lailo, Lathco, Ako, Ashmin, Mala, Besho, Ravi, and Sunil, migrated to the US, becoming professionals and home owners. Mala died last year of complications related to cancer. All are educated in various fields; in engineering, computer science, medicine, academia, and other areas of endeavour. Although he laboured in the fields, and on a manual sewing machine, he did not want his children to be the same. All of us laboured in the rice fields and rice factories, but not as an occupation. He sent us all to school, stressing the importance of education. Two brothers and a sister became teachers before migrating to NY. Although I passed Common Entrance for the government-run Berbice High, my father insisted I attend the private, more prestigious Chandisingh High. I myself taught for some 40 years, in addition to being a Prefect at CHS, and a prolific writer on varied issues, and volunteering my entire life in service to Guyana as well as to the Caribbean, Indian, and Guyanese diasporas in America.
My pa, like my ma, set an example to others, for integrity and loyalty to family and for kindness. He was a man of peace, honour, and dignity, and no boozer. He spent extended periods in the backdam, tending to the crops and the cows. He also sacrificed his years doing good for his neighbours and extended cousins, without wanting or expecting anything in return. And when his cousins were in need of help, he would send his children to help them. I virtually spent every day over several years helping my Aunt Bethlyn run her business.

Pa struggled in his upbringing without a mother, as she’d died young. He and three brothers and a sister were raised by their aji, the indentured servant from Azamgarh. Match-making led to marriage to my mom from across the ‘side-line’. Though they came from poor families, they had the resiliency to work hard, and provided for their children. (My nana died young, killed by a Port Mourant punt estate mule that he was attending; the family got no compensation, leaving my nanni to care for her nine children all alone).  After marriage, my mother worked night and day on the sewing machine, and trained hundreds of others to become seamstresses. My aja willed my father and his four other children rice land that he owned, received from Ghurbatore, and my father acquired additional land for rice and cane; turning forests into cultivable land that enriched the nation with his labour. After harvesting rice, every sibling was at the rice mill to help with the soaking, parboiling, drying, and milling of the paddy. We can’t forget that experience; labour-intensive, back-breaking work, at the end of which one gets delicious-tasting rice that the Burnham government forcefully acquired with monetary losses to rice growers.

There wasn’t anything my father wouldn’t do to make life better for his family. Although we came from a poor family, there was always food on the table. When we milled , we distributed to cousins, neighbours, and the poor. When my father milked the cows, we similarly shared it. Our family learned to appreciate what we had, of caring and sharing, from our poor grandparents and having a dad and a mother that provided for us, and who also helped others in need.
I think of the good times I shared with my pai; of his taking me to matinees, to Indian cultural concerts, to horse-racing, to the Dara Singh wrestling match, to Cheddi Jagan meetings, to weddings and Jhandis of cousins, of watching him milk the cows, of his continuing the heritage brought by his grandparents from India. After years of pleading, he took me to the backdam on the tractor to experience the joy of the rice harvest on combines and chasing after ‘water hens’. When I did not attend to my house chores or did something wrong, I got a sound thrashing, and deservedly so. During dry seasons, I had to fetch water from a mile away for the garden, or for washing or cooking. I had to take the cows to the pasture in the morning and return for them in the afternoon after school, before going out to play. Otherwise, licks! I never thanked him enough for the discipline he instilled in me and others. My father would not have approved of my political activism; he was quite upset when I co-led the student protests on the Corentyne in 1976 and 1977. He adored J.C Chandisingh.

I feel for father a quarter century after his departure, and I am satisfied that I am contributing to society the way he would have. Life continues without a parent, but I am who I am because of my father and my mother. And I am grateful to them both. It is because of them that I have succeeded in university of being perhaps unique to study for four PhDs and multiple MA degrees, and of making contributions to society. The memories of my father’s activities will remain forever in his children, as we remember his 100th. His legacy is what made his children what they are today. They are all more caring, compassionate, and empathetic because of their parents. I would like to think my father is around somewhere, for in Hinduism, his and my faith, we are taught that in life, there is death, and after death life will return in another body. I think it would be fair to say that my father left the world better than he found it, cultivating rice and sugarcane and sewing garments for factory workers in Georgetown at DDL, Banks, and other businesses that fed, clothed, and enriched the nation.

Yours truly,

Vishnu Bisram