A Tribute To Our Guyanese Poetic- Countryman Wordsworth Mc Andrew: In Ever Poetic Remembrance. By Robert H. Mahesh.
August 17, 2008
Never had I, the opportunity to meet you
But ‘t was your superb poetic images,
On our Guyanese-radio-air-waves, that drew,
Your magical poetry- reading- voice, into our ear-drum spaces.
Soon your special creative poetic presentations
Covering different shades of our Guyanese cultural practices,
Began to sow the seeds of mutual respect for our varying cultural traditions,
Cultivating incredible national cultural unity-releases.
Yours, undoubtedly was, a unique poetic radio-voice,
That drew so many of our Guyanese countrymen,
To your powerful poetic programs of rejoice,
That held our attention, so pure and positive then.
With your unique pioneering literary skills,
You roamed and sought for Guyanese folk tales,
From among Guyana’s folklore hills,
Uniting our country as never before, in a splendid poetic- magical- trails.
While the politics then and now continue to divide us,
Your poetic innovations brought us together,
Now our Motherland and us celebrate and honor you thus,
By our very presence and brotherly reverence as we so fondly remember.
You have shown that where politicians fail,
The very powerful overflow of our deep poetic emotions,
Bring us together through verse and rhyme, and allow us to sail,
In unity and love in a special Guyanese authentic embrace of convictions.
So goodbye our dear Guyanese countryman,
Have a safe trip to yonder distant shore,
Of peaceful poetic bliss and of interminable happiness fan,
Until we meet again on some future day in brotherly restore.
May your soul be granted eternal peace in God’s Everlasting Kingdom.
Robert Mahesh
A Short History of the Indo- Guyanese Community of Richmond Hill, ‘Little Guyana,’ Queens New York.
August 17, 2008
This Indo- Guyanese immigrant community of Richmond Hill, ‘Little Guyana,’ Queens, New York was born a little less than three decades ago. The total life- span of the Indo Guyanese community is 169 years. The first wave of movement of the fore- fathers of this community was started in 1838 with two ship- loads of Indentured East Indian Immigrants. They left India bound for the British sugar plantations of British Guiana [now Guyana]. The first wave of immigrants was to continue until 1917, when the system of Indian indenture labor was ended. Thousands of East Indians went to British Guiana, until they became the largest ethnic group in the country, and was followed by the Guyanese African group.
The efforts of Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Mr. L.F.S Burnham united the working classes of the country, in the early nineteen fifties. Together their political party The Peoples Progressive Party [PPP] won the first General Elections of 1953, held under universal adult suffrage for the first time. The right to vote was given to all eligible voters. That victory was short- lived. The British suspended the constitution, and some of the party members were detained including Dr. Jagan and his wife. Mr. Burnham was never jailed or detained. Dr. Jagan and his party were branded as communists. This was during the infamous Cold War Years. Eventually Burnham split from Jagan in 1955. The two men now competed for political power. The British and Americans favored Burnham, who became the first Prime Minister, then president in an independent Guyana. Burnham ruled the country for 28 years dictatorially, and with rigged elections, as the champions of world democracy stood by quietly. Under Burnham the country became economically impoverished like Haiti. In addition the social and economic factors under Burnham, caused the second wave of East Indian Movement, in the opposite direction to the United States, Canada and elsewhere starting in the nineteen sixties. That second wave gave birth to the Indo- Guyanese immigrant community of Richmond Hill, now unofficially known as ‘ Little Guyana,’ in Queens, New York.
Reflecting:
Living Indo- Guyanese History
Connected to:
Richmond Hill, Queens New York and Motherland Guyana
By:
Robert H. Mahesh
Indian Arrival Day: Glimpses of Indo Caribbean American Life by Robert Mahesh
August 17, 2008
A Historic Poetic Glimpse Into: “Indian Arrival Day”.
‘T was May 5th 1838, our fore- fathers first landed,
On the shores of Motherland Guyana,
Two ships, the Hesperus and the Whitby deposited,
First batches of our fore- fathers from Mother India.
Other ships followed and brought,
More batches of our fore- fathers,
Until the year 1917 when the British sought,
An end to the infamous labor- system that matters.
Rama and Khan were the first two immigrants,
Who first set foot on Guyana soil,
To begin the inglorious servitude that haunts,
Our imagination to this day of their inhuman toil.
‘T was from Dwarka Narth and Peter Ruhomon’s books,
We were the first to learn of their trails and tribulations,
To survive the inhuman conditions of suffering that looks,
So incredibly possible, of stark British inhuman exploitations.
Their sufferings were only surpassed,
By those of African slavery in our Dear country,
Which left a blotch on the Black Psyche so masked,
To this day with tastes still unsavory.
From their exploited sinews are we,
Their children in turn who became,
Infamously dislocated a second time to be,
Immigrants like out fore-fathers in the United States,
Canada and elsewhere, destined to remain.
Completely destroyed we’re not,
Despite the several cycles of dislocations,
But we have survived the odds- lot,
To tell, write and publish our living historic documentations.
In our Dear Motherland of Guyana,
Our fore- fathers became the back- bone,
Of the sugar and rice industries seemingly forever,
And fed and still feed the country, with their agricultural honey- comb.
We, their children left in large numbers,
In the infamous nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties,
Continue even now, for overseas- greener- pastures,
With resolute productive powers, with economic viabilities.
We, in Richmond Hill “Little Guyana” Queens, New York,
Have given the annual Phagwah and Diwali parades,
To be well- known Hindu institutions that mark,
Our Indo- Guyanese distinctiveness in the ethnically- mixed- city, of diverse shades.
So happy “Indian Arrival day” one and all,
Let us strive to be proud of our History of Survival,
Despite the several dislocations that failed to stall,
Our continuous push for economic and cultural revival.
Reflecting:
Living Indo- Guyanese History
Connected to:
Richmond Hill, Queens New York and Motherland Guyana
By:
Robert H. Mahesh
A Provocative View from an Unhappy Immigrant’s Window
July 29, 2008
From the very moment we made out entry,
Unto this “Unaccustomed Mother Earth” at birth in our disembark,
Unconsciously we have become a blessed ‘legal’ part of humanity,
With rights that none can take away from us, at that very start.
Who gave us that ‘legal’ entry at that time?
No President! No Prime Minister! No Legislator! No government’s court!
Without Visa, Green-card or Citizenship ever to define,
That status then, but now some seek our very presence to abort.
Imperialists, invaders and smugglers from among us, historically made,
Several illegal immigrants-entries on foreign shores,
For loot, business, trade, and other economic gains of raid,
Sometimes with force, bribery, intrigues and often through other corrupt doors.
They blatantly stole, robbed and exploited weaker human labor,
Often boasting of their unjust labors, as the initiators of human progress,
Which benefit only their exploitative group with undue favor,
Despoiling their weaker counter-part with nothing but retrogress of distress
In this age of Globalization and the Global Village and Market-Place,
Goods, people and services of all kinds selectively and daily move,
At greater speed than ever before and race,
To cash-in with handsome profits and leaving exorbitant groove.
Those who are left-out by way of not earning a living wage,
Live only with discontent that trigger
Immeasurable anger, hate and ruin which stage,
Protests, bitterness, disease and hunger of inevitable inhuman rigor.
Multinational Corporations spread their tentacles,
Cancerously around the world, controlled by one st of fortunate immigrants,
Who overpay themselves, overeat and exploit other immigrants’ receptacles,
With rigid exploitations, hunger, starvation and disease, to become hidden
recalcitrants.
Now we find in this so-called technological age,
Crippled with terrorism, military and guerilla maneuvers,
Competing desperately for the control f political social and economic terrain
that engage,
In open warfare and all sorts of terrorist activities,
Impeding positive economic endeavors.
Thus the world which should have had enough supplies for all humanity,
Now becomes engaged in all kinds of destabilizing fragilities,
With terror, death, squalor and disease among the unfortunate majority,
While the fortunate others dominate with their superior political social
and economic power-gravities.
Robert H. Mahesh
A Former Guyanese School Teacher
Written 4/14/2008
We must document our history
July 28, 2008
If we as Indian Guyanese do not document our history then no one will do it for us since we are living witnesses of our status as immigrants in the United States, Canada and elsewhere. Our whole story which covers a period of 167 years, starting from India in 1838 when our forefathers went to British Guiana as indentured immigrants, that first wave was a north to south movement.
Today their children have become immigrants because of policital, social & economic forces beyond our control. Our movement started from Guyana in 1965 to the present and is a movement in the opposite direction from south to north. We in second movement are fortunate to be educated unlike our forefathers and therefore we are qualified to document our stories from our perspective.
Other ethnic groups in Guyana have their stories too and should document them also. I would like to encourage Indo Guyanese to begin this documentation so as to enrich our young Guyanese Literature and History store houses for furture generations and others who may wish to read same.
Robert Mahesh
GLIMPSES OF LIVING INDO-GUYANESE HISTORY
July 28, 2008
“A Pilgrimage to the Place of his Birth in Guyana.”
By: Robert H. Mahesh
My book tells about my true-to-life Indo-Guyanese story as a seventeen-year-old sugar estate boy from Pln. De-Kinderen, West Coast Demerara, Guyana, South America. It recalls how I found it difficult to get a teaching job, because I was not a Christian although I had passed the Pupil Teachers’ Appointment Examination in nineteen fifty-two. I was turned away by two Christian priests, one being from my own school at De-Willem, West Coast Demerara, where I had brought first of four passes at the Pupil Teachers’ Appointment examination at the age of sixteen. Only sixty passes were allowed in the County of Demerara, when thousands wrote the examination, and you could not write the examination if you were over sixteen years of age.
Eventually, a goodly Catholic priest employed me as a seventeen-year-old Pupil Teacher in the Pomeroon River, Essequibo, Guyana in nineteen fifty-four, far away from my home. I taught for twenty-five years in six schools, and rose from the Pupil Teacher status to that of Deputy Headmaster, before migrating to the United States with my family in nineteen seventy-nine. Deteriorating political, social and economic conditions at home caused me to migrate. The book ends when I returned to the place of my birth in March nineteen ninety-five, as a fifty-nine-year-old man from New York, to participate in a Hindu Memorial service at the Meten-Meer-Zorg Hindu Temple. My illiterate immigrant father used to take me to worship at that temple as a little boy, when the temple was originally located at De-Kinderen.
In that service I thanked God for my poor immigrant father and for all His help to my father and to my family and I. I also left a message of hope by telling the congregation that in the same way that my father and I drew strength and courage from our religion and culture, similarly they could also draw strength and courage, from the same religion and culture, no matter what the circumstances and still survive.
My book is a living testimony of a very small part of our ‘Dislocation and Survival’ story, which led to the changing faces of the Lefferts Library and Richmond Hill, Queens, New York. It can be valuable encouragement to all those who are poor and struggling in life. My book also shows how I progressed educationally without a high school education, which my parents could not afford, to become a Fourth Batch History Graduate from the University of Guyana in nineteen seventy. The book is a wonderful lesson in the value of self-effort, determination and perseverance. It is also an example which boldly demonstrates the fact, that if we do not tell and write our story from our perspective, no one will do so for us. I have also called upon the other ethnic groups in Guyana to tell and write their stories as well. I did this in the epilogue of my book.
The beginning of my book has a ‘Prayer for a Pilgrimage to the Place of my Birth,’ and in a note to the reader I made it clear that my story is not about a king or queen, a prince or princess, a superstar or celebrity, but about a poor East Indian sugar estate boy from Guyana. Too many stories I declared have been written about the fore-going listed category, and nothing has been written about us. It is time that we begin to write our own stories. On the back cover of my book I have written a special ‘Tribute to Family Love,’ which showed the great value of father’s love, mother’s love, brother’s love and sister’s love. All these persist from the cradle to the grave. Many have failed to recognize their value only when the hour is too late. I also declared that politicians who dislocate family lives, by their un-Godly misrule, can never conquer or destroy that indomitable family love, which is a gift from God.
That you will read my book and support a budding Indo-Guyanese writer is my fervent hope. For copies of my book write to:
Robert H, Mahesh,
104-32, 108 Street,
Richmond Hill, Queens,
New York, 11419.
Tel: (718) 835 – 4989.
Email: roberthmahesh@yahoo.com