Imperishable Memories

Contents

My Family Tree

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Afterword

Glossary

Map of South America

Map of Guyana

Map of Jamaica

Map of Asia

My Family Tree

To my grand parents, my parents,

wife, my five children and spouses,

my grandchildren, my five sisters,

my two brothers and my in-laws.

This is your book!

Preface

Imperishable Memories

Four years, or more, I’ve dedicated to the writing of this book. It started as a germ, an idea, the suggestions from my wife, my five children, and my brother-in-law, Desmond, who said, Dabit (brother-in-law) you should write a book. I have written studies in the Teachers’ College, at the University of the West Indies and in doing the umpteen courses at the University of Toronto. So, why not?

The first few lines resulted with the motivation to continue. The recorded memory spurred me on to relive past incidents, to blend them with the present, and make them a continuation of incidents which laid dormant in my life, unforgotten, but soon to be refreshed herein and now activated to my own, Imperishable Memories.

I also reasoned that with the intellectuals in the Ragbeer’s clan someone ought to pen the lines, saluting the lives and making permanent the history of my grandfather, Ramdhoni, my grandmother (Nanee) Gauri, my dad, Raghubir, my Mai Sukhia, my sisters, Mahadai, Pampat, Jasoda, Lilly, Sursat and my two brothers, Buddy and Mohan.

For when we have all become ashes, only the written words would speak to our children, our grand children and our great grandchildren so that they could read and appreciate the rich legacy, which they have inherited.

I had to edit many things and occurrences in our lives. My perceptions had counseled me. And I am satisfied.

I hope that the success story of my life fulfils the dream of my father and my mother that their children should not toil from dawn to dusk, in the muddy swampland, to eke out a living, and put food on the table for their children or their grandchildren. For even though my dad and mom were poor people, we never went hungry, for there were always, that satisfying salt, rice and oil, to control our after-school hunger. Like my parents and grandparents we worked hard; we provided the opportunities for our children to use their God given talents to better themselves, and to be productive in their lives.

As I write, I feel the presences of the spirits of things unseen. What are they? The air is there. We feel it. The Universes of millions of planets are invisibly there! I see them not! The spirits of my ancestors are there and I sense their presences. Where else on this Earth could they have gone? Are we not all the products of the air, the sun, the water, the vegetation, and the chemicals of the earth which surround us? Aren’t our souls imperishable? Even if the cremated bodies have been rendered into spirits, we feel their presences, especially, during October and November, called Pitar Paksh among the Hindus, when the Shades or Spirits visit the world of the living and manifest their presences in dreams. In my own experience I noticed that my dreams during those months are filled with the images and visions of my ancestors. My mom of whom I dream would appear and disappear.

The blind poet Milton, in his famous sonnet to his wife said,

I awoke, she fled, and day brought back my night

The theme or the message is the same even though the addressee is my mother; for the world of the sightless is akin to those who are deep in sleep.

It has been a wonderful and challenging voyage from the time I started my productive years, rounding up the chickens or the ducks at the age of three or four. If someone were to ask me, Rags, which one of those years did you, find the most productive? I would ask, Aren’t all the parts of a puzzle have to be put together to make the whole? So from birth to the present if I remove one iota, my life story would not be the same. Explain to me how the richness of the waterside with all those luscious salty crab grass, courida trees, mullet filled swamps; or rounding up Cabri and her calf or walking through those spirit-filled reefs with Sunny Bunoi (my brother-in-law) reveling in his ghost stories could be replaced. I would, given the chance and the same set of circumstances, relive my life in the same manner. Nothing included, nothing deleted!"

A whole new world of experience opened up for me when I made my baby steps towards the computer. Oh how I wished I had listened and physically participated with my Grade Eight class when Mr. Don Weir introduced computers in Hudson. He understood the changing times and like the image of freshness of freshly caught fish he was timely in reading the writing on the wall and adding computers as a new teaching tool in Henry Hudson Senior School.

The old cliché is also a truth that things happen when they are supposed to happen; or, when you are forced into a situation and have to sink or swim then surely you will swim. Such has been my dilemma as I listened eagerly to my sons—Keith, Butch, Kant, Rav and my daughter Rudra showing me how to make use of the computer even though, I thought, I would have made more progress with the traditional typewriter. My thoughts were so fossilized and immovable and change was unnerving. I have learnt from that, nevertheless, and would even show some liking for that new tool which appeared so intimidating at first. But, I must also factor in the latent memory. Time and time again reinforcement by doing, doing and more doing would finally make a dent in my hardened gray cells. And Keith, Butch, Kant, Rudra and Ravi, my trusted five, would dash to rescue their dad and explain multitudinous things. I must not forget my grandchildren Dean and Avie who have rescued me on numerous occasions. In their computer minds problems were non problems. Many times in my naivety I would say that I understand when in fact I should have been honest and said, I need hands-on to understand.

Now as I move toward the beginning I see the past racing to catch up with the present approaching each other like the lover’s embrace to entwine in each other’s arms.

My wife’s successes, my own achievements, and the accomplishments of my five children have been phenomenal and fulfilled my early dreams, when I thought of emigrating to the lands of opportunities—Canada or the United States. Topping my wildest expectations my family have fulfilled my desires and that of my grandpa Ramdhoni, my Pai Raghubir (Ragbeer), and my mother Sukhia.

Dad . . . . 1888-1938      Mom . . . . 1892-1980

Chapter 1

Thunder, Lightning and Rain

The lightning flashed. The thunder rolled. Coming from far, far away then closer and closer increasing in intensity; it seemed to strike the earth and resonated to the heavens above. The lightning churned a path like a zigzagged mountain road with serpentine esses and darting tongues of fire, creating an unobstructed highway, linking heaven and earth.

If my mom were not in labor, she might have uttered in that subdued voice of hers, Look how baadaar ah garjay an bijuli ah chamkay (the thunder was rumbling and the lightning was flashing). Thor, the god of thunder, was in a bad mood today and as he split the clouds with his thunderbolts and flung his lightning rods, bucketfuls of coarse marble-sized drops fell unceasingly upon the swampland, flooding the yard, raising the water level to the first stair and even beyond.

The cows lowered their heads and turned their backs to the pelting drops. Under the branch shed the hens clucked, pecked at one another and fluttered to the higher laths. The stronger bullies ousted the more docile ones knocked them down into the water below, from which they had to be rescued. The English and Muscovy ducks enjoyed that weather for the birds and waded about in the newly formed pools of water diving and chasing one another in their sexual display, amidst the dimples created by the waters coming from heaven mingling with the waters on earth.

On that day, January 18, 1934, I was born.

My mom wanted to name me Floody but she had to follow the custom of the time and the Patra’s (Hindu Book of names) name of Shiv Gobin which the registry of birth wrote down as Shivgobin and later anglicized as Seegobin

I was the youngest of my five sisters and two brothers. We all had nicknames. My eldest sister Mahadai, was called Madai. My second sister Bhagmania was called Pampat. My third sister Jasoda was called Jus. My fourth sister Gomati was called Lilly. My fifth sister Dulmi was called Sursat. My eldest brother Dipnarayan was called Buddy. My second brother Moolsankar was called Babloo later Mohan and I, Seegobin, was called Deo.

Standing(l-r) Jasoda(Jus), Mahadai(Madai), Bhagmania(Pampat) Front(l-r) Dulmi(Sursat), Gomati(Lilly)

Many of the incidents of my early years I faintly recall. What I do vaguely remember from the swirl of jumbled vague images, however, was when my father passed away. He was only fifty years of age, and died on the fifth of December, 1938. He suffered from severe injuries to his lungs when he was run over by a bull-cart transporting paddy to the rice mills. The muddy dams were glue-like quagmires, deep ruts of clayey mud, which impeded the free movement of the cart as the pair of oxen hauled and struggled, spurred on by the briar whip with the driver yelling to the right side bull dahin and to the left side animal bawwh as he lashed them. They swished their tails, dug in their hoofs which sent up small globs of dirt in all directions. They knew instinctively what they had been conditioned to do. So they dug in and pulled. My dad and some of the other men were perched on the top of those paddy bags, forty or fifty of them, weighing over one hundred and forty pounds each when the cart struck a miry hole and canted. My dad fell under the wheel. The two other workmen, Lall and Fan, did what they could by heaving and pushing the laden cart to free my father. They eventually did, but he had been seriously injured internally. For many years he used medications, but his lung abscess caused him grievous pain and the recommendation from his doctor to remove the infected lung was met by a stoic resistance from my father. He stayed at home and stuck to the home treatment which was not enough. He needed to remove his diseased lung, which eventually, was the cause of his death.

Then, I was four years and ten months old. My sister, Sursat, my brothers and I were coming home from the DeHoop Canadian Mission School. The kids were all laughing, taunting one another or chatting. We neared the railway platform when a familiar friend of my mom, Sukhu Mai, came up to my sister, hugged her, and with tears in her eyes said in Hindi, Betti, Baap,marrh gile (My daughter your father is dead). Shouts and screams erupted from my sister. I wondered what Sukhu Mai had said. Almost incoherently, and with tears flowing freely, she screamed, Oh God me Daadi dead! I cannot remember my full reaction. Surely then, I did understand the significance of life, but the meaning of death was incomprehensible.

A crowd of mourners had already assembled in our house. They were gathered on the balcony and on the bottom of the house. The women were wailing loudly, ululating, beating their chests and with their heads tied securely with their roomals they held on to each other for support, whilst the men congregated and spoke of my father and what they knew about him. We walked up the six or seven flights of steps to the area which we called the gallery and there was the corpse of my dad, covered with a white cotton shroud. Only his pale clammy face was exposed. Covering both of his eyes were two pennies, the significance of which I did not understand. Was it to cover his eyes or was it the symbolic fare for him to cross the River Styx?

Throughout that wake night men played cards whilst the women gathered together offering condolences and lending support to my mother. Coffee and biscuits were served. In one corner of our bottom house the village carpenter was busy cutting, sawing, shaving, making that wooden box, the coffin, in which my dad would be buried.

I might have been huddling in some remote part of the house or seeking peaceful sleep with my two elder brothers, and surely, on this day, I would have latched either on to Buddy or on to Mohan.

The burial day was the next. The body was washed, clothed with his white kurta (collarless shirt) and dhoti (loincloth), and he was laid peacefully in his coffin. My dad had suffered from the ravages of that lung abscess and his wheezing and coughing was a daily bodily torture. Now his agonies were all over. Death had brought him peace.

The scary part for me came when the three sons had to cross the coffin. Buddy and Mohan did so without any fuss or anxiety. However, when my brother-in-law, Sunny, lifted me to cross over my father’s head, I leaped from his hands, ran through the crowd east on the public road, then south on the DeHoop Road two hundred yards to the railway track, which ran from Georgetown to Rosignol—a distance of seventy miles. I ran west on the railway track jumping from sleepers to sleepers unmindful, whether a train or luggage (transport train) was approaching. My fourth sister, Lilly, ran after me. Spurred on by my fears I was outdistancing her. She shouted and hollered at the top of her lungs: Wait beta (child)! Wha you ah run? Na frighten! (Wait child, why are you running? Don’t be afraid!) Reassured by her consoling tones, I slowed down. She caught up with me, gathered me in her arms, held me tightly, curbed my fears, and asked: Wha you frighten fa? (What are you frightened of?)

Nervously I stammered amidst the free flowing tears: Me na wan fu go in dat bax! (I don’t want to go in that box).

Dem na go put you dey, dem only want you fu jump over abee Daadi caff’n (They will not put you in they only want you to jump over the box or coffin) she entreated.

Meanwhile, the four o’clock train was approaching from Georgetown, bound for Rosignol, the eastern terminus situated along the west bank of the Berbice River, thirty or thirty five miles away. My sister hung on to me as we stood fifteen or twenty feet from the tracks as the rumbling train chugged by, whistling and spewing huge blobs of black smoke, which floated about in the wind dispersing and fading away like ghostly strips of grey-black strata clouds. The train slowed down as it neared the DeHoop platform. We could now hear the screeching of the brakes as that metallic monster named 32 Sir Edward came to a dead stop, very much like the moving fingers of my dad. The comforting embrace and the sincerity which the warm actions of my sister showed, brought renewed hope to my flagging confidence and lifted up my spirits to face what was ahead. At that point in my life reason rationale was absent, and only the primitive nature was manifest. I was warmed by my sister’s tenderness and I felt her sincerity as we walked back to our house where I was coaxed, sheepishly and reluctantly lifted over my Pa’s coffin.

The pandit (priest) preached from his holy books, blew his conch shell several times simultaneously ringing his bells, as the holy mantras were uttered. I did not understand the significance of the ringing bells or the sound of the conch, but later, would learn that those were the rituals or the symbolic calls unifying the conscious with the spiritual state. Perhaps in my understanding those were calls to the netherworld, and the world of the Shades, that another soul was coming thereto.

The next day was the day of my father’s burial. Six pall bearers… my four brothers-in-law and my two cousins would lift that coffin for the full two miles to the point of burial on a piece of land given by Mr. Beniram (Ramji) a landed proprietor of DeHoop. I watched through the southern window of our house as the procession slowly and lazily walked down Ramji’s dam. As was the custom of the time, no women were in that procession. The funeral procession made seven stops along the way, as the coffin was rested on the ground and the pandit chanted. On an elevated point on the dam, which held back the water in the rice fields, a grave less than six feet deep was dug, and therein my father’s coffin was lowered. No headstones or mark of any kind indicated his resting place, and that site, to this day, is unknown. Many others were buried along that same dam. In our early lives my eldest brother and I would go cutting grass to feed the milch cows. As we passed the spot where our dad was interred, we would bite our fingers, look sideways, or hang on to each other for strength and courage. We dared not whisper, lest we anger the spirits of the dead. Too small and naive we were to understand, what our father in his living years had wanted for his sons, and had vowed, Me naw want me sons dem to wuk as hard as me. Rather than biting our fingers to ward off his spirit we should have gone to his burial spot, lifted the dirt which covered his remains, pray for his soul’s immortality and the fulfillment of his dreams. His hopes and aspirations were those of all fathers. He toiled in the swampy alluvial clay lands of DeHoop. He planted his crops on rented land, awaited the results determined by the hands of nature, suffered losses and gains, but made progress. He and my mom were thrifty parents and though they merely eked out a living they were able through thrift and diversification to own a few heads of cattle, sheep, goats, ducks and fowls. My dad, also, would take produce, paddy or rice in his donkey cart to the villages where he would sell his items to the local villagers. So in time they were able to buy a parcel of land about four acres on which they built their own one bed-roomed house, which in later years, Jas and I had rebuilt to act as a monument for their toil. In that small house love was abundant and five daughters and three sons mingled, and later my nieces and nephews would find a safe harbor there. Not to mention the fact, that my sisters would find it their home, when they were about to give birth. It was in that setting that my dad functioned until his untimely death at fifty years of age.

My five sisters: Madai, Pampat, Jus, Lilly and Sursat were all married at an early age, the union of arranged marriages. Economic standard, religion, caste, character and family stability were taken into consideration before parents would consent to commit their sons or daughters to wedlock. But many had looked upon that system as a primitive and backward one, however, the success rate was very high as estrangements, separations, infidelity, divorces and illegitimacies were far and few. Notwithstanding the fact, that those marital problems did occur, but when they did, social stigmatization and avoidance in public acted as the restraint.

With that in mind, when Megan Hardeen’s mother asked for my eldest sister to marry her son Megan without hesitation, my parents agreed. They were business people and apparently well off so for my sister she would have economic security.

My second sister Pampat was asked for by a rice farmer and cattle rancher from the remote area of No.10 Mahaica Creek. Baba Ramdhanie, whom we called, Crick Bunoi was also passionate about horses and his trusty steed, Fairy Flag, won races at the prestigious Durban Park, in suburban Georgetown. In December, 1938, when my father died he took on the responsibility to tend our milking cows in his ranch along with his flock. As a young lad of twelve or thirteen, I worked with him in those swamplands, rounding up the cattle, fetching the milk cans, penning the calves, catching fish, (especially the hassar) hunting pigeons and doves in the quackoo bushes. There, at Number 10 Mahaica Creek I became the expert in fishing, and time and time again, would surprise my sister with catches during the dry season, when there were only a few distant water holes of which I knew.

Jus, my third sister married a personable young man. Sundar Singh lived in the village of Golden Grove some eighteen or twenty miles away from Vey Vey. He became the surrogate father to the three of us young boys. He would help us to milk the cows, plough the swampy lands behind our house, cut and thresh the paddy crops, and do other chores associated with rural survival practices. He was a stern disciplinarian and would not spare the rod to spoil the child. On one occasion he struck me with the head of a coconut branch (bat) across my back which enraged me so much that I filled an empty Pepsi bottle with water and hurled it at him, but my errant aim missed him by several yards. To get even too, I opened the cages of his birds, which flew out to freedom. My sister Jus spoke up for me and told him never ever to lay hands or whip on me since I was not his child. That made me happy. Despite his sternness, he would make us those artistic kites during the Easter Season. He used all kinds of beautiful matching kite paper colors—red, white, blue, yellow, mauve and orange. Buddy and Mohan would get the singing engines, which were so designed, that when the wind hits the bull it made a loud humming noise. Those were the macho kites as opposed to the pasies rather patsies, which made a flapping noise from the wind hitting its ears. Even though I was happy with the pasies I was not excited. So it seemed as if my two older brothers got the royal treatment and that I was low down on the totem pole and the underdog. I was slated to become the pasture boy, the laborer, the husbandman, the fisherman? Was that what destiny had in store for me? Time will answer!

My sister Lilly was thirteen years old when my dad died. Sursat was eleven; Buddy nine; Mohan was seven and I was almost five. It was hard work to feed, clothe, school and care for us from the milk which my mom sold, or from the rice she would cut, or from the ducks or fowls or eggs she would sell or from the bora (long beans) or eggplant or squash sold from our kitchen garden to buy things such as flour, sugar, salt, onions, garlic and other spices to keep us alive. At a very young age I learned to cast my nets. I was a good fisherman and would always bring home some fish or fishes to help complement the evening meals.

At thirteen and eleven, both of my sisters were eligible to marry, but in my family marriage took place sequentially. So my sister Lilly was asked for. She was married to one Bhaio from Bush Lot, West Coast Berbice. Her bad experience was characterized by brutality, slavish treatment, aggression and beatings dished out by a semi-savage husband. That marriage was terminated when my mother and my eldest sister saw the unacceptable situation in which she was trapped, and brought her away to our home. Later she would help my eldest sister in the city, and would bear two children, Dennis and Doodnauth fathered by my brother-in-law, Megan Hardeen.

As my youngest sister Sursat grew, she was the imprint of my mother’s picture in personality and appearance. She was beautiful. Young men from the village would send messengers asking for her hand in marriage.My mom would seriously consider their economic conditions, their caste and their family history before she decided. And not many met her high standards. One eligible bachelor, however, came up to scratch and to Bridgemohan Singh, called Pauloo, she was married. She mothered ten children, who, over the years made excellent progress in Guyana, Canada, United States and England.

Eighty percent marriage success rate was acceptable, and my sisters followed my mom as a model in character and motherhood.

My mother, whom we called Mai, was of East Indian parentage. My grandfather came from India. He was a bond coolie an indentured servant, who in the years after emancipation in 1832, was one of the coolies brought to work in the sugar cane fields of Demraila (British Guiana,) Trinidad or Jamaica, My grandfather was allotted to the group bound for Demraila. Much of his history I cannot authenticate, except what I heard from my Ma’s mouth.

My grandfather had a family in India. He was visiting his family in another village. Under a coomaka tree a crowd of men had gathered. Amongst them were some white men. They asked him where he was going. He said that he was visiting his sister in a nearby village. They offered him a smoke told him and the other East Indians of those fabulous places, a few hours journey, across the waters, where they could make an easy living by working in the cane fields or chasing crows away from the plantations. The next thing he knew was that he and others were in a jahaaj (ship) bound for that fictitious Eldorado. They discovered that they were lied to, duped into indentureship but it was too late. They had no choice but to suffer the hardships of the long journey over the Indian Ocean via the Cape of Good Hope across the Atlantic Ocean to Trinidad. Some died at sea from cholera, scurvy, or diarrhea. Not to mention the brutality they suffered from the whites, their revered sahibs in that crossing. They reached Trinidad weak and emaciated. Some were sent to Demraila, some to Jamaica and many remained in Trinidad. Little surprise, then that today, Guyana and Trinidad has a large concentration of East Indian population. My grand-father was one of those captive laborers slated for the sugar cane fields of B.G., where he worked from dawn to dusk under the stifling overhead sun, which so rarely varied its position overhead at seven degrees north of the Equator, and the temperature of 85 degrees, Fahrenheit. The torrential tropical rainfall between May and July added to the hardships which he had to endure. Separated from his original family, he had no choice but to join forces with the other bound coolies, toiled seven days per week and awaited for his emancipation. He took my grand-mother, in that strange land, for his second wife and brought forth into the world one son and one daughter. He worked for five years, saved every penny he could, and at the end of his release he decided to pay his way back to India.

He died at sea, where he was buried.

My grandmother also died shortly after my mother’s birth. So my mom was orphaned at an early age and was adopted by the Jorees. She was denied the opportunity for schooling. Her dad or baap, would pluck her from the doorsteps of the school with the reprimand that schooling was not for girls. My mom, however, never denied her daughters, nay her children, the opportunities of schooling. Innately, she possessed excellent memory acuity and could recite verse or verses from the Holy Books—the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Gita, the Alha Udal, and other books with their moral enlightening tales.The Hanuman Chalisa, and the Danlila, she knew by heart. Time and time again she would be singing in her melodious voice, verses or excerpts from those auspicious books.

Whenever she had poojas, kathas or jhandis (religious functions) she knew when the pandit missed a line or Doha. Later, she would draw that omission to the priest’s attention.

In like manner, her children too, inherited that excellence for memorization. In school we would distinguish ourselves by reciting poems, plays, and prose in flawless fashion.

Friday afternoons in DeHoop Canadian Mission School a class or grade would be selected by the teachers to entertain the rest of the school by reciting, singing, or dramatization. We eagerly looked forward to those occasions. My eldest brother, Buddy would learn the longest poems from the Royal Reader take up his position on stage, salute very smartly, and heroically recite his verses from poems such as Young Lochinvar, The Wreck of the Hesperus, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard—or other poems.

His contributions were always a standout, compared to those of his peers, who were satisfied with reciting very short poems.

Much of my second brother’s contribution on stage I did not remember. However, from an early age he was the brainer of the Ragbeer’s clan. He had, even to this day, an active mind, a superb intellect and a sharp wit, attributes which qualified him for the lofty medical profession.

My rote memory, also, was above average. I was always anxious to get on stage to recite, sing or to dramatize. I remembered acting the part of Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar with his famous opening line of, Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears. On one occasion, I sang the song Billy Boy and was nicknamed, Billy—a name many would call me in later years. My young nephew, Sewdan was always there to correct, pace, and to learn with me. He too, had a keen mind and was above average in intelligence. I was glad that he was living with us. Number 10, Mahaica Creek, where my sister Pampat lived, was miles away from the nearest school. That school No.10 C.M. was located on the right bank of the Mahaica River in that isolated community. The few houses were far apart and separated by slushy swamps, tall grasses, deep ponds, some drainage canals, mixed trees, lots of fish, snakes and alligators. From that partial forest and savannah my nieces and nephews came to live with us at Vey Vey, DeHoop so that they could be properly schooled at DeHoop Canadian Mission.

Sewdan and I were not only uncle and nephew, but he was like my brother, one year younger. We were two competitors and two survivors, who would eventually do well in the world.

Our boyhood days were chock-filled with stories, far too many to narrate in this autobiography. And always there was my kind mother and his vigilant nannie (grandmother from mother’s side) always watching and supervising us. Sometimes I got the feeling that he was treated like a guest and I tried to order him around, but to no avail. He resisted.

We swam in the ponds, rounded up the cows, penned the calves, tended the goats and the sheep and counted the ducks to make sure that they had all returned from the swamps after foraging among the duck weeds, the bizzi-bizzi and other swamp vegetation.

Playfully he said one morning as we were taking our morning swim in the pond, Today me guh dive more far dan you! That was a challenge from which I could not back away even though I knew that it would be a close race. I dove first holding my breath underwater and swimming alligator-like for nearly twenty-four feet. I surfaced and then he plunged, and arose. He had beaten me by nearly two feet. With his jubilation and hysterical laughter I could hear my mother hollering and telling us to get out of the water or we would be late for school. We hustled out, because we did not want to be late for school, to miss out on that regularity and punctuality certificate, which my mom would frame. Schooling aside, we made our sling shots, pitched marbles and glided buttons over the school desks in gambling for buttons. In addition to that, we were hunters. Behind our house was swampland, which nested the home of the coot, a small black water fowl with yellow beak. That bird could fly about two hundred yards, if it were pursued. It would then dive under the tall grasses and stick its beak above water for breathing purposes. We were aware of the habits of the coot. On one occasion, we hurled sticks at one of the birds which was quietly pecking at this and that, among the duck weeds. Alarmed, and frightened, it rose five or ten feet in the air, flew two hundred yards and landed. Sewdan and I pursued in the two or three feet of water and grasses, visually marked the spot where the bird landed, but found no bird. All that we saw were air bubbles where the coot landed. We followed that fine line of bubbles and they were gone, disappeared as the bird had. We could not have imagined where that creature went. It could not have vanished! But wait! Look carefully keen hunters! Look around! Remember the darkest spot is under the lamp! Hush! Shhh! Fingers on lips! Look! Where? Above was only the powder-blue sky and around us in two feet of water were the tall bizzi-bizzi grasses with their green stems shimmering in the golden sun. And then both of us looked at each other and said in hushed tones, Look! Almost simultaneously, we saw in the clear water the yellow beak of the bird embracing the weeds, as the black feathers and the body were held submerged by its gently paddling feet. Carefully and with extended fingers like the talons of the hawk, I pushed my hands under water grabbed the bird’s submerged body and brought it up, to its scratching and pecking.

Grab its neck and its feet! I exclaimed. That done, that evening we dined on dhal (split peas), rice, and bhoonjal (dry curried) cooked meat.

In school, I was one grade ahead of him. We both loved the epic stories of Homer. The story of Ulysses or Odysseus captured our imagination. So I nicknamed him Homer. During the dry season when the swamp was dried up and the vegetation was all stunted parched brownish growth, we would tie our ram to a stump in the dry pasture, to restrain that wandering Casanova from messing around with the neighbor’s ewes. Additionally, we had had a bad experience in the past with villagers who stole our sheep, our ducks and our goats. Our flock ram had to be guarded. My mom had gone to the city. So in tying up that ram Homer and I decided that I would be the hero of this tale.

Tie me up under the belly of de ram sheep, I instructed. No luck. The animal would not stand still. I could not fit properly under the ram’s belly. The animal even stepped on my back a few times, and bucked, and kicked. It raised such a ruckus, that we abandoned the idea. We were not finished. Our gray cells were in the fast forward mode. Okay, but this is not how the story is, I said, I will ride the sheep, you whip it. With those utterances I climbed on the animal’s back. The ram had never had anything sitting on its back. If anyone, or anything, were to sit on another’s back, that should have been him, as he serviced the ewes. I sat on its back. Homer lashed the beast. It bounded. As it lunged forward, I fell and the rope got entangled and neatly wrapped around my left shin. The animal ran and the rope tightened at the same time as the skin of my shin bone was being grazed away. I bawled and hollered, Stap de sheep! Stap de sheep! He ran forward grabbed the rope and stopped the animal. I looked down at my shin and saw a six inch scar, which as I aged got larger reminding me of my heroic exploits. Adding fuel to fire, he callously said, Dat is not how the story end, I shouda tie you unda the sheep belly!

Saturdays were market days. Mahaica market was two miles away from our home at Vey Vey, DeHoop. My sister Pampat, Sewdan’s mom, would travel, like many riverain dwellers to that market, from No.10, Big Biaboo, and Little Biaboo to purchase their weekly supply of food. There too, at Mahaica they would collect their weekly dues for the milk they had sold during the week. From her weekly take she would give my mom two dollars for the milk they had sold from our cows. She would give her son eight or twelve cents. I realized that money was being shared, would hang around, and would get a penny. Then I would disappear in the Mahaica Market to purchase nothing that would cost me more than one cent. The other cent was for buying, during the week, crushed ice from Ishranee shop, next to the school. I realized that my nephew had eight or twelve cents and would share with me whatever he bought. On the other hand, when our marbles were smashed I would encourage him to buy two taws from Bala Kanhai’s shop. Those marbles of brown or blue hues cost about three cents each. We selected different colors for identification. Thus, our lives progressed along simple routines. He never needed my help in English or Arithmetic. His grades were always very good. Very much like my two other brothers whose achievements were always above average. On one occasion all four of us my two brothers, Sewdan and I placed first in our respective classes. My mom and my sisters were so very proud that she bought toffees for all of us.

The school’s inspector, Mr. Potter, was coming to visit our school. Everyone was expected to be on good behavior. No nonsense was tolerated. I was given the speech, Pitt’s Reply to Walpole to learn with the intent to recite it to the school’s assembly. My nephew, Sewdan, helped me along with the memory work. He seemed to know the speech by heart, as if he were making the presentation. In fact, that was a good thing. If I could not do it, then he was the backup person. So in the presence of the school’s assembly of, students, teachers and inspector I delivered the whole speech without faltering I must confess, however, that in the fifth grade I did not understand many of those high sounding words, phrases, allusions, irony or wit with which the reply was charged. I might even have mispronounced many of those words. For which grade five Creole students would know the meaning of palliates, supercilious, contempt, abhorred, receded in virtue extracted from that parliamentary response. Those words, however, have stuck in my memory and have enriched my vocabulary. Perhaps, Mr. Forsythe pitted us against the Oxford or Cambridge scholars to prove that even in the colonial system, we the colonials, also had innate talents and were of equal intelligence.

Why were those select parts given to me? Was it because I was an exceptional student in memory work? Did Mr. Forsythe see in me some latent talent? Was he accommodating me because of the skylark incident? Maybe it was a combination of those three factors, but the skylark story was different. Let me explain!

We were reading from our text, Royal Reader Book Three. The story was based on, The Skylark. So colonized we were, that we learned about a bird, which we did not know. In fact, we knew more of England, than we knew of British Guiana. We read aloud aided by the teacher and his promptings. Every now and then he would pause to ask the meanings of words or phrases. We got to the sentence where that heavenly bird, symbolic of earth and sky, or mortality and eternity, would soar into the sky, utter its full-throated song, and relit on the open down. Now my vocabulary did not have in store the word "down. It had in store the word dung. You see we cleaned the cows’ pen in the mornings, and we heaped the dung to nourish the clayey soil so that we could grow our peppers, egg plant and bora, among other crops. Teacher Lalta questioned, Boys and girls what is the meaning of down?"

I confidently and bravely blurted out, loud and clear, Shit Sir!

Woe unto me. That was the 1940’s. Breathe hard, look straight into someone’s face, whisper aside in someone’s presence, look straight in an elder’s eyes, and you were in trouble. Here in my class of thirty, to my teacher, and all those around who could hear in that open school, I had committed the unpardonable sin of swearing. I must be punished. With the utterance of the swear word a titter of laughter went up from the class and was met by a stern and final command from the teacher, Be quiet! Quiet reigned. Who said that word?

I raised my hand and said, I did Sir!

Boys get him over the bench! Two grabbed my hands but the others didn’t have to do anything. On my upturned bare buttocks I was benched, meaning that I received the fiercest flogging which Lalta could have delivered from that one inch cow hide called a buckle which he tied his pants with. I bore my inhuman chastisement, stoically, all the time thinking not about the licks but rather the question, "What does ‘down’ mean?"

DeHoop Canadian Mission was an open concept school. Two hundred or more pupils it could house. We sat on desks and benches, six or seven students in one bench and shoulder to shoulder. If crammed, maybe it could accommodate another student as we were always told to make ourselves small. Within the school, a few blackboards did not give much privacy, and every class knew what the other was doing. Clearly and distinctly we could hear the teachers’ voices as they taught and clearly we could hear the screams of a child who was being whipped. A student being whipped was a special treat; it broke the monotony of a lesson, and it drew much attention as to whom he was. On the playground, after dismissal, he would become the laughing stock for the other students.

Our headmaster, Mr. George William Forsythe, ran a tight ship. He was a disciplinarian. He tolerated no nonsense. He taught and he whipped. He knew who was being flogged. He peered over his spectacle, which was now midway over his nose bridge, as his eyes scanned all around. He took ten steps from his table walked over to the scene of punishment and questioned, What did Seegobin do Pupil Teacher? The entire class was in hushed silence as one could hear a pin drop. Expectantly all awaited the dreaded answer. Thirty pairs of eyes, or even more, focused upon me. Where can I run? Where should I hide? There was no place where I could run to, and no holes I could hide in. I was already prostrated on a desk, with my buttocks revealing its dark crevice and red welts from the lashes already received. Students, especially the girls giggled covertly as they saw how naked and helpless I was. Some might have pitied me as Lalta spoke, He swore Sir.

And, what did he say? questioned Mr. Forsythe.

"He used the s word sir." There were many local swear words and Mr. Forsythe surely did believe that Lalta Persaud meant that Seegobin had used the s word, which, in our time, was the vulgar slang of the female genitals.

Communication! Communication! I would later conceptualize was message given, and message received. There is precision. No assumptions. In my unfortunate situation, Mr. Forsythe had assumed the worst possible meaning of that word. My punishment was about to continue, like when the frontal winds of a hurricane had passed, in the rear kicking up speed, winds of equal velocity were churning.

Mr. Forsythe had a strap, which was his whipping belt, thirty inches long, two inches wide and about one eight of an inch in thickness. It was part of the leather harness of the donkey’s britchin, that part which spanned the donkey’s flank. That was his feared weapon, which he laid into my already bruised and swollen buttocks. How many lashes I did not know? The more he hit my frail seventy pounds body, the more his adrenaline rush urged him on. It was finished. I cried. I staggered to my feet, but the commands from brain to feet and buttocks, were not promptly obeyed. I limped home; my nephew and I; my head bending low. The mental and the physical agonies were unbearable. And to this day that internal wrath overwhelms me, as I tried to give meaning and understanding to that which was so wrong. After all, in our yard, the cattle dung we collected with our bare hands, and heaped. That dung we allowed to dry until we could use it in our clayey patch of garden soil to make it more friable for our garden vegetables. We were almost home, and my mom was sitting by the roadside waiting for us, but the news that I got whipped and very badly too, reached her by the forerunners and those who liked the taste of spreading bad news. In her heart, she believed that I had done wrong and as such deserved my punishment. No question about that! In fact, if that were the case, another whipping awaited me.

I attempted to walk to our house, but Sewdan hesitated by her.

Wha happen in school? my mom asked him.

Dey beat him up real baad, he said.

Come ya! (Come here), my mother ordered.

I obeyed. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but with my lower part out of sync. There by roadside, uninhibitedly, I dropped my khaki drill pants, as my mother observed the horror of the teachers’ brutality.

Wha dey beat you up fa? She enquired.

Because me sey dat ‘down’ mean ’shit.’

My mother hesitated, thought for a few moments. Her mind was trying to understand what "down" meant. Then she asked the question, If dung na mean shit wha it mean? Relief! Relief! My confused mind screamed. At least now I would not get another licking. My mother was perplexed. Leh me see how dey bucher (butcher) you up? In the meantime, local students and some parents gathered and made comments such as; Dem teacha ah really beat up dem pickney fuh no cause. Come le me luk afta you batty (bottom). Me gad it really bruise an swell up. Now you luk like dem big batty village gal. Tumara (tomorrow) me go ten to dem

She took me into our house, administered Canadian Healing Oil and soft grease, and daubed it on the wounds. Still very sore my mom fed us and left us to do our homework. The next morning shortly by 8.30 a.m. my mom armed herself with a sharpened cutlass or machete and grass knife, walked to the school, one mile away.

Classes were assembling at the time when she got there.

Above her head she brandished the cutlass; moreso, for effect than for violence, and in a loud challenging voice shouted, "Ah whey da kasai (killer or brutal person) dey an whay da Lalta dey. Me want to know wha dem lick da by (boy) so much fa. He can’t sit or walk dis maning (morning). Me go tek him to the police station and den me go carry him to de inspector in Gargetown. Dat is advantage. Why? Because he na gat wan daadi!" (Because he does not have a father).

Ever so often in life there is a person who can temper an inflammable situation, and today, Teacher Georgie was that person. While Lalta and Forsythe ducked for cover, afraid of life and limb, brave Teacher Georgie walked up to my mom imploring, Mrs. Ragbeer come talk to me. Still raging and furious my mom counteracted by saying, Wha you mean! Tell me, you na see how bad dey beat up Deo yestaday, because he sey dat ‘down’ mean ’shit’! True, Teacher Georgie was present, but she assumed, like Forsythe, that other allusions were made. A different light was now being cast on the whole sordid affair, and my mom’s anger was being soothed by Teacher Georgie’s compassionate approach. In the presence of the Headmaster and teacher Lalta, Mr. Forsythe now realized how badly he erred in jumping to a wrong conclusion. Here was a good example of local and foreign meanings of homonyms. He walked over to my mom put his hand on her shoulder and said contritely, Mrs. Ragbeer I am sorry, I was wrong. Please tell Seegobin that I am sorry. I felt exonerated.

I returned to school after the next few days and many of my peers related what happened on that morning before classes started. However, I was not vengeful towards Mr. Forsythe. My estimation of him never diminished. He accepted his error, and in the second place, he was my trusted tutor when I was a young teacher.

Chapter 2

Stars and Scars

That brutal and unprofessional incident went by even though the scars are mentally branded, and would surface in my consciousness as an occurrence of just yesterday. Cruel, as it was, that incident created many opportunities beneficial to me. The deep hurt of a mother’s heart which no one else could understand or empathize with was revealed, and it penetrated Mr. Forsythe’s conscience from that day on as I was treated with much more respect and perhaps over compensation. I became his personal charge, and he was deeply involved, in my education, and my teaching career. Bad communication resulted in my extreme flogging, but my school days were not seasons of horror rather they were filled with incidents which bring laughter to my face even here, as I write. I had many conscientious and dedicated teachers, who were interested in our progress. One of those teachers was teacher Ragbar, who started teaching at DeHoop C. M. I idolized him, watched his every movement, as he wrote on the blackboard. I wished that someday, when I grew up, I would be able to write and explain things to students on blackboards. Now, a truism of life flashes before my eyes as I think, Be careful of what you set your mind upon, because it will be yours. In my subconscious, too, I vowed, that I would abolish corporal punishment in that school, if ever I became a headmaster.

I still see Teacher Hennie in the Preparatory Class with beads, colors of green, red and yellow on that neat little counting frame as the beads could move from one end with the monitor repeating and repeating the numbers from one to twenty. Every one had to speak up in unison as the beads were moved one, two, three, four, five and so on. She was armed with her whip or strap and every now and then a stinging lash across the shoulder would wake up any indolent student. The choral recitation of the numbers rang through the whole school and the closeness of the classes caused one and all to participate in Teacher Hennie’s number facts. The participation was also more pronounced with the lilting sing song rendition; one/two buckle my shoe, three/four, shut the door, five/six, pick up sticks, seven/eight, lay them straight, nine/ten, a big fat hen.

In the alphabet department the choral work was also fun with each and every one repeating and chanting in a sing-song fashion, a for apple, b for bat, c for cat, d for dog, e for egg until the twenty-sixth letter of z , for zebu bull was reached.

Since I had inherited a good memory, I did not have any problems with the rote learning and as such, knew the preparatory book all by heart. Whilst others were matching words to articulation, I was reciting them off by heart.

Teacher Georgie was our first standard teacher as far back as I could remember. There was her motherly image as she stood in front of the blackboard explaining single line addition, where no carrying was involved, such as 1+3+4 = 8; and the more complex concepts which involved carrying, such as, 12+24+46 = 82. We had to memorize that in the unit line the numbers had added to twelve so that we now had to keep the two, and carry the one to the next line. Sometimes it was confusing and I often wondered why the teachers made things so complicated. Why not add up the unit line and write the twelve down and continue with the tens line and write the seven down? But such was not to be! She called upon one student or the next, especially the slow learner, to come in front of the blackboard and do those complex additions. I remembered how with shaking hands.Mani,Chabi,or Sew would be called forward to demonstrate on the blackboard, or, for want of a better word say, to be made examples of and not knowing what to do will receive their several lashes on whichever part of the body the teacher pleases to hit. Thereafter, with heads bowed low and tears flowing freely, return to their seats as they silently wipe away those teardrops with the sleeves of their shirts. I loved those moments, since I got the opportunity to use the chalk on board, and to show off my quick grasp of addition which pleased teacher Geogie and earned the comment in my report card, Send this child further on Did I know the meaning of those predictive words?

She also taught us to write in script and cursive and to practice good penmanship. In that first standard she taught for many years and we were privileged to host her to a retirement reception in that school when I was Senior Master in 1963.

Lalta Persaud started off as a junior teacher in the school. He was then called a pupil teacher because he was still under training whilst he was teaching; something like an apprenticeship period in some professions. He was a knowledgeable teacher, but somewhat of an irritable disposition and easily angered. Patience and tolerance were not his virtues. He used his whip very freely, and like many others in the system, corporal punishment was used as a teaching method rather than as a means of discipline.

Maude Forsythe, the wife of the headmaster taught in the fourth standard. She was a satisfactory teacher, who followed the practices and methods of the other teachers in whipping when one did not understand. It was an inhuman system which we had no way of changing.

Different teachers taught in the fifth standard. It could have been Ragbar, Clement or even the principal himself, whose domain was the sixth standard or the Pupil Teachers class. In the fifth standard we were expected to have much fluency in reading, to be able to read aloud clearly, to comprehend passages or sentences, to spell well even with an unseen passage in dictation. In grammar, we were expected to understand syntax, types of sentences, and to analyze and parse even complicated poetic verses. In mathematics we understood fractions, LCM, GCM, Pound Shillings and Pence and could convert that currency to dollars and cents. We also understood avoirdupois weight and the relationship between tons, hundredweight, quarters, pounds and ounces and could convert one to the other. Problem-solving and other mathematical skills of varying difficulties were drilled into our academics. Those concepts and extended work continued well into the sixth standard with the addition of higher order concepts and principles.

So when one wrote the School Leaving exam and passed one was moving upward in the academic world. The pupil teachers’ exam which followed next separated the sheep from the goats. Those who passed that exam were recruited into the teaching force and were known as Pupil Teachers.

In a nutshell, such was part of our early schooling

In our time schooling was fun. Apart from the classroom disciplines, we interacted positively and negatively with one another. We had our cliques, our favorites, our likes and dislikes. As boys, during the lunch break, of one hour we had time enough to wander down the dams, and pastures, looking for tamarind, mango, jamoon, guava, gooseberry, and other fruit trees, wherever they were. The fruits subsidized our lunches which comprised basically of rice and vegetables or fish, which we carried in our saucepans.

On other occasions we pitched marbles waging buttons, which in time of losses, we wrung off from our shirts or pants. We played bat and ball—a version of the famous cricket, abbreviated for our purpose and on one occasion, Chucka and I, were the winning partners and the heroes of one of those games.

Some students who lived a mile or two away from the school, such as the Freitases, Tebutts, Crum Ewings or Silvas, had runners, who delivered hot meals, which were carried in enameled-tiered carriers. I thought how fortunate those students were to eat from separate containers, whilst we ate, two of us, from one saucepan. Buddy and I ate from one, and Mohan and Sursat, ate from another. I would wait until Buddy had eaten his portion, and Mohan would wait until Sursat had eaten her portion.

The majority of the residents, two hundred families or so, were East Indians, sons and daughters of indentured coolies like my grandfather. They had bought small parcels of land and settled in that swampy domain located on the east bank of the Mahaica River, which is sixty to seventy miles long and which emptied its