Reflections: Sweet and Sour Memories of The Prasad Family of Bellbowrie

REFLECTIONS: SWEET AND SOUR MEMORIES OF THE PRASAD FAMILY OF BELLBOWRIE By Dr Ram Lakhan Prasad.

                          (Part One)

One day in 2010 I heard an unusual voice that seemed to come from the sky- It seemed as if it was a divine word and a gift of love.

“Do not think that life without a body is an empty one, my friend, for the spring from where we all draw life is next to you but you cannot see it. We bathe in it, you and me. That same spring, you bathe your body and I dip my soul in, can be found just by your side. Seek and ye shall find.

It is this spring, this source, which really supports every miracle, every phenomenon we see as ordinary in our world. We see it all. We are excruciatingly close to this Reality. However, just as we cannot see our own eyes, only the visions they offer, this Reality evades us. Just as we can no longer see the water that makes the snow, no one will ever know the real truth about your life but you yourself alone. So try telling it all to your loved ones, my friend.”

When the voice faded away, I made a promise to the divine words that I will try my best to reveal every aspect of my life to my loved ones. All that cannot be told will be interred with my bones when I am gone from this world. The rest of it is here for all of you to read, interpret, ponder and understand.

Do you find the above piece confusing? Yes, my life has been confusing but I am trying to interpret it the way I see it right. Read along and you will understand my objectives and find me somewhere near you.

There has never been anything more important for me than living a happy and fruitful life. I have always felt that as long as there is life and a devoted wife like my Saroj, there is definitely hope. Hope for the family, hope for the people, hope for the country and hope for better living. My wife Saroj and I have lived for the last fifty four years happily because we had hope. We had trust in each other. We had faith in our future that we planned to build and construct it rightly.

Our hopes have always been much greater than our life because we always believed that within us was a super power and positive potential to enable us to exert and reach for the sky. There never was any limit to our progress. Yet there was no greed to keep acquiring more than what we needed but we had a total sense of contentment.

We always wanted to do better and improve not only our performance but also our total life. We wanted to see and experience greater success in every development that was going on around our family and us. In all our achievements, we felt our complete satisfaction at all times. There was no question of any misgivings. We worked to our definite goals and plans. We have succeeded in achieving many of our aims and objectives.

Although Saroj and I have reached a milestone in our life together, I wish to narrate it alone so that only I am responsible for all the errors and mistakes that have been made knowingly or accidentally. These are all my sweet but a few sour memories. However, I managed to persuade her to contribute and she produced what I called “The Golden Lotus” but she titled it as The Shrivelled Lotus.

As an introduction I think it would be appropriate to reveal my roots right here.

My Roots-From Basti to Botini 

          

The Fijian chiefs ceded Fiji to the British Government in 1874 but the natives were not culturally ready to participate in the economic development of the country. So the British Government in conjunction with some multinational enterprises went to other colonies to bring people who could be manipulated to help them achieve their economic goals.

The Colonial Sugar Refining Company with the help and support of the British Government was willing to exploit the situation and enter the scene of the so-called economic development of the country. The Company hired cunning recruiters (Arkathis) to visit various villages and cities of India to recruit young and healthy Indians who could work on the sugarcane plantations and orchards belonging to them. They in turn recruited Indian priests and village heads to do the initial ground work for them because the people there could trust these men. Thus began the Indenture System for the Colony of Fiji in 1879 commonly known as Girmit.

Gangadei was my grand mother. She was a pretty girl and was as calm as her name sounds. She was born in Sitapur in the district of Basti which is in Uttar Pradesh (North India). She was the last of the four children of the farming family. Very little else is known about her childhood but she was an intelligent and a strong woman.

She was a twelve-year-old girl when she accompanied a group from her village to go to the annual Ayodhya Festival, a religious gathering of villagers. This festival used to be so crowded with people that once one is lost it would be impossible to locate them easily. It was in that massive crowd of people that my grand mother got separated from the village group. She felt alone and frantically began searching her group but alas there was no hope. Tired and hungry she decided to sit down in a corner completely disappointed. At that time her condition was like a fish detached from water.

Where could she go? Who would help her? What should she do?  She was confused and did not know what to do. She had lost her thinking power altogether in this confusion. ‘Into thy hands Lord, I commend my Spirit.’  Nothing remained in her own hands, everything in His.

A yellow robed pundit of middle age saw my grand mother’s condition and expressed his wish to assist her. Such people were respected in the village and she felt at ease to talk to him. He spoke kindly, “Beti, why are you crying? Have you lost your way? Have you lost your family members? You don’t worry because as a holy man I am here to help you.”

My grand mother felt that this help was god sent and she greeted the pundit with respect and told him her sad story. Punditji realised that my grand mother was in real need for his assistance and this made him very happy. The pundit however, hid his real eager feelings and expressed his concerns and pseudo sadness as if his own daughter or sister was in trouble needing his assistance.

He pacified my grand mother and expressed his sorrow. “Well, whatever was to happen has happened but now you do not have to worry any more. I am here for you. I am calling a rickshaw to take you home.”

Whatever my grand mother longed for, this middle-aged Brahman was prepared to deliver so she fully trusted him and agreed to return home with him. The pundit made a signal to a nearby rickshaw operator who was eagerly waiting for him. They sat in it and left the busy festival ground to a destination unknown.

My grand mother was eager to reach home but instead she arrived at a Coolie Depot and then she realised that this fake pundit was an agent (Arkathi) to recruit workers for the Indenture System. She cursed herself for trusting him but it was too late now. She was a prisoner in this Coolie Depot from where it was impossible to escape. There were various other unfortunate souls sitting and cursing their fates there and were unsure of their future.

The next day all the recruits appeared before the resident magistrate to register themselves as slaves to work in a foreign land. After the registration for girmit they were put on a cargo train bound for the port of Calcutta. When my grand mother reached the Depot in Calcutta she could not believe her eyes when she witnessed the dilapidated nature of the place. Her worry and sadness multiplied manifolds but she could not do anything else but cry.

The late Sir Henry Cotton in his report to the British Parliament writes this on Girmit Recruitment Procedure:

In too many instances the subordinate recruiting agents resort to criminal means inducing these victims by misrepresentation or by threats to accompany them to a contractor’s depot or railway station where they are spirited away before their absence has been noticed by their friends and relatives. The records of the criminal courts teem with instances of fraud, abduction of married women and young persons, wrongful confinement, intimidation and actual violence- in fact a tale of crime and outrage which would arouse a storm of public indignation in any civilized country. In India the facts are left to be recorded without notice by a few officials and missionaries.

The new recruits suffered great injustice at the hands of the clerks and agents at the depot. Men and women were forced into small rooms like animals. Men and women were compelled and forced to get into pairs and then they were declared wife and husband. Those that did not agree were locked together and the men were instructed to make the women agree. Those who failed to come out as pairs were punished severely.

This pairing that turned into illegitimate marriage gave the agents publicity that the girmit was conducted with the consent and willingness of wife and husband. This was far from the truth. In most cases the forced pairing led to social disaster and in some it turned out to be a blessing for the recruits because they could share their sorrows and grief.

It was in this Calcutta Coolie Depot that my grand mother met my grand father. My grandma’s case was a sad one. She worried a lot about her future and the forced pairing so she decided to choose my grandpa as her husband because he was from the same district (Basti) and he was strong and handsome. That was the beginning of their family life and the authorities registered their marriage.

My grand father was Sarju Murau who was born in Dumariaganj in Basti UP India. His father Shankar had a farm where he grew mangoes and other fruits but since there were four other brothers in the family my grand father at the age of fourteen was asked to work for a landlord in the next village of Senduri at almost no pay but only keeps.

One day my grand father was caught putting a few ripe mangoes in his bag to take home so he was branded a thief. This stigma became unbearable for a growing and honest young man of fourteen. He knew he would be ridiculed if he went home so he left this landlord in search of other jobs elsewhere. He walked a long distance in search of work, which was not that easy to find. He reached Kashipur but he had not even reached the town when he was spotted by a cunning recruiting agent (arkathi).

After noticing the predicament my grand father was in, the recruiting agent took advantage of the situation. He started a friendly conversation with my grand father, which went somewhat like this:

“How are you my friend? Are you looking for work?” asked the agent.

“What kind of work sir, and what would I get as wages?” my grand father wanted to know.

“Well, my friend, this is not work at all,” the cunning agent said in order to trap my grand father.

 “In fact, you are indeed lucky and certainly you are destined to becoming very rich and famous soon. There is a beautiful island off the coast of Calcutta known as the Ramneek Dweep. A very rich landlord resides there and he needs the services of a security guard to look after his home and the farm. You will get full uniform, food ration and a farmhouse to live in. You will only work for twelve hours a day with a gun hanging across your shoulder marching up and down the entire property. You cannot find such a lucrative job anywhere here because you will just enjoy your daily tasks and even earn money. What else do you want?”

My grand father felt very good and began imagining himself as a security guard with a gun hanging across his shoulder marching up and down the property in the day and enjoying life in his farmhouse at night. This sounded like heaven to him. He began to dream about his future life full of fun. He was not prepared to hear any more but to sincerely thank the agent and agreed to travel immediately. The agent felt good to trap another recruit.

Seeing that my grand father was tired and hungry the agent took him to a nearby eating-house and fed to his hearts content. Then they got into a rickshaw to start their journey to the dreamland. But when they reached the coolie depot my grand father’s hopes were shattered and he felt disappointed with himself for believing such stories of the agent and falling into his trap.

When my grand father saw the crowd of people he regretted his every move. He too joined the other unfortunate victims in the depot to hang his head down and cry. He too felt like an animal in a strong cage unable to find its way out. He began thinking that his village was much better place to live a free life than this dungeon. He was told by some recruits that he will be in Fiji where he would work long hours on sugarcane farms owned by white men. He will have to sweat from head to tail twenty-four hours a day and tolerate the harsh treatments of the field officers. He was not able to imagine the reality of the situation then but when in Fiji he told me all.

There was nothing he could do to get out of this depot because of very tight security there. At last one day he too was presented to the office of the magistrate who asked him only one question, “Do you agree to go to this island to work as a labourer?”

“Yes sir!” answered my grandpa as the recruiting agent instructed him.

Thus his five-year contract (girmit) was signed and sealed. He was a slave. Similar fate awaited thousands of others who were waiting to get on board a cargo ship Sangola Number 1 in 1907. There were women, children and men. Everyone’s heart was filled with pain and sorrow and the eyes were wet with tears. Some were sobbing for their relatives and family members, others missed their parents, and yet there were others who lamented the loss of their motherland. My grand father described that inhumane coolie depot as the hell on this earth.

The Clerk of the Court in a communication admitted that it was perfectly true that terms of the contract did not explain to the coolie the fact that if he or she did not carry out his or her contract or for other offences, like refusing to go to hospital when ill or breach of discipline, he or she was to incur imprisonment or fine.

According to Richard Piper, Indians in India believed in very strict caste system but all caste restrictions were ignored as soon as an immigrant entered the depot. For the poor unfortunate who happened to have some pride of birth, there was a bitter but unavailing struggle to retain their self-respect which generally ended in a fatalistic acquiescence to all the immorality and obscenity of the coolie lines. The immigrants were allowed to herd together with no privacy or isolation for married people.

My grand father and grand mother both admitted that no one who survived at the end of the journey could distantly have faith in the caste system. They were all simple human beings and to call himself or herself Brahmans, Chatriyas, Vaishyas or Sudras or even Hindu or Musalman was foolish to say the least.

Sarju and Gangadei were two of those unfortunate souls who fell victim to the Indenture System of 1879 onwards. Indians lived in poverty but they were subsistence farmers enjoying their lives with their respective families and so were Sarju and Gangadei who were just healthy adolescents.

The late Sir Henry Cotton explains that the recruiter or arkathi lay in wait for wives who had quarrelled with their husbands, young people who had left their homes in search of adventure and insolvent peasants escaping from their creditors.

When one form of slavery was abolished in the western world then another kind of deeper slavery began from the Indian Continent. This was called Girmit or the Indenture System.

Rev Andrews mentioned in his book that before they had been out at sea for two days in the stormy weather a few of the poor coolies were missing. They either committed suicide or hid themselves in the hold. They were dragged by the officers and kept alive but they too lost their battle with life.

Upon entering the depot my grandpa was issued with two thin blankets and a few tin eating utensils. At dinnertime all the recruits were made to sit on the ground in a line and served dhal and rice. Some hungry recruits were frantically eating but there were others who were submerged in deep thoughts about their losses of religion, family members and national pride.

My grandfather sat there quietly for a while because he could not collect enough courage to eat such food in such a situation. The clerks advised him that it was no use worrying about petty religious, social and family matters any more. Life for him had changed and he had to accept it.

He prayed hard. ‘O Lord I give you my heart and soul; assist me in my agony; may I handover all my future into your safe and powerful hands.’

Well time and days keep moving. They do not stop for anyone or any event. The recruits were loaded on the cargo ships and were allocated a small place on the deck that was dirty and wet. The mood, condition and situation on the ship were so drastic that the recruits began to feel ill. Some kept vomiting for a long time and those that could not tolerate the unhealthy and unsocialised circumstances jumped into the sea to end their ordeal.

The recruits suffered for days and could not eat the poorly cooked khichdhi that was dished to them daily. If the weather became bad and the food could not be cooked they were given dog biscuits. The recruits had to suffer the heat, rain and cold on the deck. The journey was long and dangerous. Many of the human cargo lost their lives through hunger, torture and suicide because they could not bear the cruelty and suffering onboard the ships. However, both Sarju and Gangadei survived the atrocities and were united as a family unit to work on the sugarcane farms in Matutu in Sigatoka.

Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya said that the condition under which the labourers lived on board the cargo ships were not good at all. There was not enough care for the modesty of the women, and all castes and religious rules were being broken and it was no wonder that many committed suicide or else threw themselves into the sea.

The sea journey of the coolies lasted a few months and at last the boat anchored near a small island in the Fiji Group in November 1907. This was Nukulau, a quarantine station.

It was here that the recruits were washed with phenyl and examined to give them certificate of fitness so that they could be auctioned. My grandpa and grandma were bought by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company based in Sigatoka and were transported to Matutu where they were given eight feet by eight feet grass huts that were not fit for human inhabitation. Wet and hard floor and a few blankets were allocated to them. Their first ration of rice, dhal, sharps, salt and oil was also handed to them. If they completed their daily tasks well for a month then they were paid ten shillings for that month.

My grandpa recalled that the white men Kulumber or Sirdars allocated daily tasks to the girmitiyas and if any weaker person was not able to complete the tasks satisfactorily they were beaten with whips, fists, kicks and sticks. They had to tolerate all the injustice because there was no place or institution to register their complaints.

Despite the fact that my grand parents were both strong and good farmers and managed to complete their daily tasks well, they too suffered a lot of beating and injustice at the hands of the white men. However, one day towards the second month when the Sirdar was abusing my grandma, my grandpa could not tolerate it any more. He was using a long handled hoe to complete his task and used this to beat the white man. This kind of self-defence happened a few times and then both my grandparents were free from any violent attacks. But verbal abuse never ended.

My grand father encouraged other girmitiyas to stand up for their self-defence but only a few could do this to protect their self-respect. One of them was Tularam who converted to Islam and became Rahamtulla. He was my grand father’s jahaji bhai and established himself as a farmer in Botini later.

There they were made to work hard, for long hours and suffered cruelty and abuses of the sector officials if they made the slightest of mistakes. Like many other Girmitiyas they too were whipped, kicked and beaten by the Sector Officers. There was no one to hear their complaints and thus they could only blame and curse their ill fate and they could do nothing to escape these hardships.

Whilst in Matutu my grand parents had many good friends and one of them was Rambadan Maharaj who after his girmit became a shopkeeper. The two families interacted with each other long after my grand parents moved from Matutu to Botini.

The families despite their difficulties met regularly to continue with their cultural activities. My grand father with the assistance of Rambadan Maharaj had developed a great love for the Hindu Epic Ramayana.

My grand parents completed two difficult and deceitful contracts of five years each and gained their freedom from bondage in 1916. This freedom from slavery was a lot sweeter than the sugarcane. Their happiness was so great that it outweighed the sorrows and sufferings of their indenture.

By 1916 the Indenture System had stopped but my grand parents continued to grow sugarcane and other crops in Matutu until 1928 and then moved to Botini in 1929.

As a result of their loyalty and hardwork they were rewarded by the CSR Company with a lease for a large piece of land in Matutu and in Botini in Sabeto to continue sugarcane farming. They had to cater for their family of three sons and five daughters by then and despite the option to return to India they chose to sign further contracts to supply their own sugarcane from their farms to the company.

However, my grand father went back to India to pay respect to his birth place in 1952 but had to return to Fiji to continue his family life because very few of his family members could be located in Basti by then. Frequent hurricanes, floods and internal infrastructure developments in India had dismantled and disintegrated the family. This was another price that the girmitiyas had to pay and the loss of their root was unbearable.

My grand father then put his eldest son Hiralal on one of the three farms in Botini and managed the other two himself with his other children. His second son Bhagauti Prasad managed the farm in Matutu until the farm was sold to Rambadan Maharaj when the world war two started. His son Bhagauti Prasad got married to Ram Kumari daughter of Bali Hari from a nearby village called Nabila. Bhagauti Prasad, my father, joined his father Sarju to manage the farms in Botini later.

World War two had just begun. Soldiers from various countries began to arrive in the country. Camps soon got established in strategic places in the main island and the army personnel began patrolling the areas on foot and on various types of vehicles. They were there to keep peace but they were definitely disturbing the peace of the village people.

Inhabitants of the small village were all cane farmers who were brought from India as indentured labourers by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. After completing their hard earned indentured contract of five or ten years they were free to settle as cane farmers or return to their motherland India. Many chose to settle in this village on land allocated by the CSR Company. They had to enter into another one-sided contract to supply sugarcane at stipulated price to the mills owned by the Company.

On many occasions upon supplying tons of sugarcane to the Mills the farmers were told that they can not be paid because their product was dirty and it would cost the Company more to clean the mills than to pay the farmers their share. The farmers had no alternative but to accept this sinful decision. There were no organizations of farmers to give them legal assistance until early 1950s. In order to subsist they had to do some mixed cropping.

CRS Company believed that they were doing the farmers a lot of favours because they had used recruiters to enrol them from various cities and villages of India, which in those days, like Fiji, was also a British Colony. They emancipated the labourers from stark poverty in India and resettled them in Fiji.

The village of Botini in Sabeto valley was the salad bowl of the country where farmers boasted growing best vegetables and other crops. Surrounded by the mountain range known as the Sleeping Giant or Mount Evans and the winding Sabeto river the villagers had great prosperity at their feet at all times. Naturally they lived in good homes and had all the conveniences. The farmers worked very hard and lived in a united community that soon had their own educational and religious institutions for the development of their children.

My father Bhagauti Prasad was born in Botini Sabeto Nadi in Fiji on 27th June 1918 and my mother Ram Kumari was born in Nabila in Sigatoka Fiji, on 24th July 1924. They got married in 1936 and lived happily in Matutu for a while and then shifted to Botini when the Second World War began.

It is in this background that my father Bhagauti Prasad, the second son of Sarju, having worked on the joint farms for several years began to do farm work on his own piece of land that was allocated to him by his father. This new venture began in 1949. He was married and the family lived at this new location with my mother, their two sons and two daughters at that time: Ramlakhan, Vidyawati, Vijendra and Shiumati. Other five daughters were born later.

Just to give one example of the wisdom of my grand father I would like to narrate a story that he told me when I was a first year teacher.

The Best Way Out of a Problem is Through it.

My grandfather was an indentured sugarcane farmer and when I was a first year teacher he told me a story that intrigued me.

He said that he ploughed around a large rock in one of his fields for years. While doing this he had damaged several of the blades of his plough and even a few ploughs as well. He had grown rather morbid and gruesome about that rock.

After breaking another new plough blades one day and remembering all the trouble the rock had caused him through the years he was finally determined to do something about it.

When my grandfather put his crowbar under the rock, he was surprised to discover that it was only about a foot thick and that it could be broken up easily. So he broke it into pieces and when he was carting it away he had to smile to himself and remembered all the trouble that the rock had caused him and how easy it would have been to get rid of it much sooner.

Then he passed this wisdom to me and I still treasure his words. He said that there was often a temptation to bypass small obstacles when we were in a hurry to get a large problem solved. We simply do not want to stop and take the needed time to deal with it immediately. Like I used to do, they just plough around it. Usually we tell ourselves that we will come back to it later but what really often happens is that we never do.

So he said, if the obstacle is of a type that will keep reappearing over and over, we are usually better off to take the time to fix it and be done with it. However, if we are tempted to go around it time and time again, then we should tarry a little and should ask ourselves, if the cost in time and money and trouble is worth it.

He concluded that the best way out of a problem is through it.  I agreed and followed his wisdom all my life and still do.

As a young child, I had many dreams and these positive visions kept getting bigger and bigger as I grew older. Some were lost on the way but many saw full or partial realisation. As time moved on and my growing up became more complex, challenging, difficult and somewhat confusing I had to fight for my living and my survival on many fronts. Somehow, I knew that childhood was not a permanent disability and one day I would grow up to face the world as a responsible adult. I did grow up and become responsible.

The more I learnt about the world around me the greater my challenges became and my knowledge about religion, politics, economics and culture made me stronger and more able to face the consequences with greater courage. I felt that I needed to narrate some of the important episodes of my life for everyone who would dare to discover my past and learn a few things from my mistakes, misgivings, mirth, miracles and milestones.

When I started to narrate my life story, my past life came to me in waves, my present was constructed on that solid  foundation and my future, although non existent at that time, gradually became clearer and plausible. So I managed to construct my future as I wanted.

Would my people like to hear my life story? I do not know for certain, but I hope so. It is definitely an unusual story. It is real, truthful and exciting but still one can be forgiven to feel that it is all made up and fictitious, hence not worth reading. After all, our own life is fictitious and destructible anyway.

This is a story about living a full life. It is a real story about a family that was determined to get out of poverty. It is a story of people who wanted to get up and go and it is a story of endeavours and challenges facing people who felt that progress was the only answer for good living.

Having thought of all the predicaments and circumstances surrounding my life, I finally decided to proceed to tell it all for posterity. I suppose this would be the story that could fit any progressive family that wanted to make their existence to be worthy and of real value in this challenging material world. The only difference is that we had to struggle and fight for our survival.

Knowing that my grandparents were brought to Fiji as indentured labourers but turned themselves as successful farmers and later as wealthy entrepreneurs, all our future generations had to be more determined to persevere and find greater success. India had to be left behind and a larger India had to be created in the paradise. Each one of our family members has been responsible for the success that decorated them.

A synopsis of my life could be put as follows: A very simple village boy gains entry to one of the best high schools in 1954 and gets through all high school certificates, completes all his college examinations and university assignments with good results to serve the communities as a successful educationist.

He becomes a teacher in 1960 and progresses to various levels of education after completing his BA and Graduate Certificate in Education from the University of the South Pacific in 1970s. He proudly serves Fiji as a primary teacher, high school teacher, senior lecturer at tertiary level, and senior education and curriculum officer for the whole country and retires as principal education officer of Western Secondary Division in 1987.

In thirty years, he serves various communities and fields of Fijian education and administration with distinction. This really amounted to a thousand years in his lifetime.

After retirement from the civil service, he continues his academic studies in the Human Resource Development and Marketing fields, completes his postgraduate degrees of MBA and DBA from California, and joins a large business organisation as their Director Human Resources in 1987. After a decade of dedicated service to that 500 plus company, he migrates to Australia in 1995 to begin a new chapter in his life. He continues to work well for Education Queensland as a senior lecturer at Brisbane Education and Training Centre for ten years.

A complete retirement comes to him in 2005, some ten years later, when he fulfils all his dreams and missions to become a fully satisfied individual living happily in his free home with his devoted wife, Saroj. He is proud to be living happily among a family of his four married children and eight exceptional grand children. This has turned out to be a complete bliss for him.

However, one of the many problems he had with him is the thought that he had not been able to please everyone. There are many in his life that could not be served well because of his sour and difficult attitude. He always felt sorry about this but could not reconcile with this dilemma. He moved on regardless.

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What had been buried all these years in the recess of my mind now wants to come out and be displayed so I thought I let out both the sweet and the sour aspects of my life for my family members to read and either enjoy or despise.

A rich village in Fiji called Botini in Sabeto Nadi is my birthplace and I have a special feeling for it. I have loved my sweet and sour memories and experiences in my half a century of living there. All these memories are very sensitive, treasured and interesting but soothing because they have given me a lot of knowledge for my modern living and provided me with many ideas to make my ends meet with ease. My firm foundation was laid in the great valley of Sabeto in a village called Botini with my grand parents, parents and uncle and aunts.

.

This was the place where I had spent most of my early life, where I had made my best years, my hopes, my illusions, my health and my youth. This was where I loved to hear various kinds of birds chirping and nature awakening to give me a special kind of thrill, exhilaration and protection.

Of all the mountain ranges, the Sleeping Giant of Sabeto is the most attractive natural structure for me because I had a unique relationship with this great range for many of my formative years. It has given me valuable strength and assisted me to develop positive mental attitude to living. It has provided me with the power of positive thinking. The soil, the air and the entire atmosphere around this great giant are supportive to everyone who has lived and worked in that fertile surrounding.

It sleeps silently along the humbly flowing Sabeto River and gives hope, honour, healthy living and support to many families. Our own family benefitted from its existence for over a century in a variety of ways. We procured our food, firewood and festivities from and around this great monument and the ever-flowing river.

This great prakritic or natural monument has made me develop this theme or mantra of positive thinking early in my life and has kept me moving ahead with added vigour and strength. I have called it my possibility thinker’s creed which I have been reciting many times a day to provide me with the needed inspiration and motivation.

POSSIBILITY THINKERS’ CREED

WHEN FACED WITH ANY PROBLEMS,

LIKE THE MOUNTAIN RANGE OF SABETO

I WILL NOT QUIT,

I WILL KEEP ON STRIVING

UNTIL I CLIMB OVER IT,

FIND A PASS THOUGH IT,

TUNNEL UNDERNEATH IT, OR

SIMPLY STAY THERE AND

TRY TO TURN THAT SLEEPING GIANT INTO A

GOLDMINE OF MY CHOICE.

I was born and raised in Sabeto; a village that is very rich in its culture, community and control, a place where people live in harmony and all sorts of cultivated activities are at a peak. In fact, an environment that boasts self-sufficiency at all times. The people living there lack almost nothing and try to enjoy life to the fullest. The people living there are rich in many respects- body, mind and soul.

Years later when I returned to my birthplace as a man, I was mesmerised by the beauty of this God-sent land. My grandfather built his farm in Botini around 1917 when he completed his indentured contract (Girmit) with the CSR Company.

Within a few years when his farms flourished, all the local residents were too superstitious to call it luck. The village people were envious of his farm. They had no explanation why the vegetables and fruits were twice the size of others sold in any nearby markets. According to my grandfather, his son, my father, Bhagoati Prasad, was the main architect and character of this production.                             

                           

Our farm was made up of thirty-hectares of native lease that had rough terrain but the soil in the valley was very rich and alluvial for any crop to flourish. This little island in the Pacific could have been the land of milk and honey if all the people tried to understand each other properly and worked hard with acquired skills like our parents and grandparents did.

While the life of my parents was flourishing, the country was gradually deteriorating in a variety of aspects because of lack of good leadership and proper understanding among the people.

The early social, political, cultural and economic interactions and dealings of the two major races, Indians and Fijians, were looked upon by each other somewhat suspiciously. The leaders of these respective communities were caught in the smart move of the British to divide and rule them since 1874. Even after when the country became independent in 1970, the people and their leaders could not find any worthwhile and workable solutions for real harmonious multicultural existence. They became worse neo colonialists.

It was very sad that the Indians and the Fijians, with their respective excellent cultural backgrounds, rich languages and worthy beliefs, could not reconcile and understand each other well enough to make the country give them the best benefits. These conflicts affected their living standards but the Indians pressed on regardless and made many good and beneficial contributions for the over all development of the nation. In the process, they became the richer of the two communities but an envy of the other because they had better living standard in the form of income, homes, cars and education.

Whatever was the political persuasion of the days of our lives we managed to live well and look at our progress as a law-abiding family that was determined to succeed and prosper. Our Fijian and Indian neighbours were cultured people ready to help us at any time and our village was a place of peace and tranquillity. We became a role model for many people.

For us this was like a haven on this earth where relatives were many and friends were in abundance. We did not worry about knowing people; we just made ourselves worth knowing by being friendly with everyone.  If it were not for these beautiful people around us, we would have been total strangers who would have been deprived of love and laughter of our friends and good neighbours.

The secret of my parents and grandparents was to interrelate and interact meaningfully and healthily with everyone around them. They learnt the language and the culture of the native Fijians of the village and established not only friendship in sharing the tasks and ceremonies but had good social relationship with them.

The village headman, a native Taukei, Apisai Mawa called my mother his sister and asked my mother to tie the Hindu traditional bond of raksha bandan on his wrist to always remind him to help her in her needs and difficulties. Apisai Mawa, his people and his children honoured this tradition very sincerely at all times and our family reciprocated. My greatest thrill came to me when as a child I played with my native brothers and sisters. I called them tavangu and they called me bhaiya.

                                           

My life has been a mixture of many sweet experiences but there were some sour situations that have given me a lot of cause for concern. All these life experiences combined together to give me a very healthy, wealthy and wise family life. I have no regrets and no repentances because the people with whom I interacted constantly enriched my life in many ways. I kept up with my good experiences, treasured them and enhanced them to give me more. I am happy and honoured to give the benefit of all my experiences, fascinating as well as the boring ones, to my readers.

Very early in life I had learnt to create suspense and my imagination managed to produce great stories for my friends in the village as well as the schools I attended. This is one of the reasons for my popularity in my social and cultural circles. I learnt to grasp all my opportunities and turned them to my advantage. I loved to share these strengths with my friends. I grew up by sharing and caring.

On the other hand I made every effort to suppress the sour points of my life and did my best to turn these liabilities into assets. I always regarded them as my weaknesses and threats to be replaced with my talents, skills and opportunities. This philosophy has paid me huge dividends and has given me a good social and family life.

Very few people can come out at the end of the tunnel of modern living and sing the songs of praise as I have done in my difficult but challenging expedition. Whether it was good, bad or ugly, I loved every moment of my living. One thing was clear to me right from the beginning and that was a simple belief in me and the feeling of positive thinking to stand up every time I fell and to continuously say “I can” and “never give up”. These mantras of modern living have always made me move ahead with courage and determination.

In fact this had been the call of all the successful Indians in the land that they took as their own after their indenture system ended. In their second home they had to find their rightful place, hence their hard work, dedication and perseverance to find their correct bearing. They were banished once but did not want to suffer again.

My growing up was simple but the confidence, hope and strength that I developed with the assistance of my grandparents and parents made me look ahead and always say, “If it is to be, it is up to me”. So I had to do whatever I thought was right and did not worry too much about what the rest of the world thought of me or my words, thoughts and deeds. I developed as I wanted to.

If I made a mistake I was always prepared to accept it and change for the better. I learnt to live in the present time by learning from the past but looked to the future for my vision. I fell at times but I quickly rose to take charge of my activities as I wanted them to be. I did not dwell too much in the past but certainly learnt a lot from history.

Nothing ever made me stop and divert my attention from my progress, prosperity and personality that I culled out for me. I forged ahead and pressed on regardless. This has been my way of living for over seven decades in different countries and in a variety of circumstances and in varied situations. The days that gave me tough times I had to become tougher and stronger. I knew that there was nothing without a problem of some sort but I also fully understood that there was nothing without a solution of some kind.

One thing that gave me courage to keep moving was my firm belief in the power of prayers. I took God as a Supreme Human Being so emulating Him and His practices from the scriptures became my way of life. I never was a blind follower of any religion because I regarded over indulgence in religious rites as a type of drunkenness.

My father told me that no one has seen God because He is the Supreme Power- Shakti- on this Universe. He has no form or shape and is present everywhere. This great Shakti can only be felt and perceived but the people who have carved and displayed various images of God, have done these just from their imagination. Whatever is our healthy imagination of that Supreme Being that becomes our image of God. My image of God has been a truthful, resourceful and intelligent super human being worth emulating.

As Karl Marx said, religion for me too has been the opium of the society. I soon learnt that if one followed these outdated practices completely blindly and indiscriminately then one would quickly lose the real meaning of living a productive life. Very early in my life I realized that my religious belief needed a change to suit the modern society. So I reformed my thinking accordingly.

I have never been any expert on religion but an ordinary human being who always thinks for himself. Change for me has been a constant aspect of my living. History has revealed that we have experienced a variety of cultural, social and religious changes in our lifetime. It is believed by many people that our way of life needs a change if it does not meet the demands and requirements of the current situations. Religious practices have been modified or changed many times previously when they became too rigid for any group of people. My situation was no different.

While growing up we gradually want some form of spiritual consolation, a bit of solace and maybe eternal peace in our life. We do not have to stick to and live in the past to achieve these phenomena. Change as I have seen has in many respects brought a lot of peace, progress and prosperity for our friends, family and all the people.

Depending on the place of our birth, our association with each other and our family history, we look toward a certain belief and either retain our original belief or convert to any of the many other religions of the world. Whatever is our religious belief, ultimately we have to behave as good human beings. The reason for our success as immigrants has been this belief of truth, goodness and beauty.

I have found that good human beings attain truth, goodness and beauty in their words, thoughts and deeds. Any deviation from these sound and solid aspects of living makes us alienate and we tend to differ in our human conduct and behavior to be corrected through the processes of social, economic or religious controls and the justice system. Some of our family members and I have faltered at times and had to be rightfully corrected for all our silly and small errors.

Very early in my life I realized that if truth, beauty and goodness were the cornerstones of our way of life then it was time to become more elastic and tolerant to the new changes that were inevitable. We needed to be more elastic in readjusting to the externals and non-essentials and then we would succeed in keeping our new generation intact and to be followers of new form of living that would lead us all to prosperity.

We so called modern dwellers need the emergence of more courageous and determined new and reformed teachers, parents and leaders to give us new meaning to our old ways of living. One more thing to remember is that our voice for a change is more than what we have heard and a lot greater than whatever we have experienced. If we forget these then we will banish before we see our progress. I managed to liberate my family from archaic beliefs and search for ways to live happily in the modern society. I am proud of this development.

Throughout my life no temple or mandir was ever better for me than my own home, sweet home, because it was here that I found the peace and love that I was always fond of and was constantly searching. My home has always been the place of needed peace and universal prayer.

During my early childhood and adolescence I did visit many places of worship and prayers but none gave me the solace and tranquility I was looking for because people participating in those socio-cultural events were not at all genuine with their conduct and faith. All the religious gatherings seemed meaningless and selfish because people were there to show off their wealth, false pride or power and compete with each other.

Firstly, these forms of worships and prayers were too long and laborious that made everything and every practice very boring and meaningless with the use of language that very few of us would understand. It was a waste of our valuable time and effort. I quickly realized that I could better use my time and resources elsewhere.

Secondly, the unease of people shuffling their places and searching out their ideal sitting positions, their constant coughs, whispers and other noises made things more difficult to appreciate and empathize. Everyone attending these meetings was there with their own specific agenda.

Thirdly, the forcing down of old doctrines and archaic religious ideas upon our tender brains was somewhat torturous and unbearable. Almost all the stories revealed various aspects of fairy tale and looked and seemed unbelievable and suspicious. A lot of these religious stories contradicted scientific and biological reasons.

Even the prayers and scripture songs with loud musical instruments and hoarse voices made a mockery of peaceful deliberations to reach any form of salvation and bliss. The wasteful usage of food, flowers and foliage in and around the fire did not help the idea of offering these elements to God when the prayers themselves said that God is the giver, the creator and the destroyer of everything. We would rather give these things to the poor than waste them.

Then the serving of grog and the aspect of free smoking did not at all set any good examples and precepts for the followers. The rich did these in a lavish way and the poor repented their existence and state of poverty. The priests were uneducated and made people follow many unnecessary and obsolete customs and traditional obligations by instilling fear of punishment. I soon abandoned the use of the priests in conducting my prayers which I organized myself in the comfort of my home. I regarded my God as the giver of all good things rather than punishing me for not following the out-dated religious and social beliefs.

As a result of these beliefs, I kept developing a feeling of indifference with these irrelevant and unbelievable practices of those types of cults and stuck to my own definition of religion. There was no freedom and no democracy of belief for any person who had an alternative view and critical appreciation of these out-dated and out-moded practices. We had no choice but to blindly conform and I found this very painful and disturbing so I chose to opt out and I became a lot  happier for doing this.

However, for the prosperity of my family life I pressed on and followed the more humanistic view of living by developing my own philosophy of truth, goodness and beauty which was the cornerstones of real human existence anyway. All throughout my life I listened carefully, read with proper comprehension, I comforted my friends and relatives, I learnt to give advice and receive good suggestions, I taught well, I loved to tell stories and consequently, I lived a wonderful life. This became my way of life. I stopped pleasing everyone and started doing what I could do best for myself and my family. All else was immaterial for my rightful co-existence.

I always firmly believed that in order to live happily we do not need to be extravagant and lavish in our worship and prayers but follow the very simple ideas of loving, giving and believing in the powers of the Supreme Being. There isn’t any only one way of offering our prayers to the Almighty. We are individuals and should perform individually and treat everyone as equal. I had always seriously opted out of the idea of caste system because it had no justification at all for humanity.

If we as individuals managed to educate ourselves well enough to serve our people, train ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually to protect the nation and work hard enough to till the land and produce food for others then that is our contribution to this world. We need to learn and accept to assist our fellow being to live, pray and play the respective roles in life. This is what is termed as the division of labour and cannot be mixed with any definition of out-moded caste or creed.

I strongly felt and it was important that our inner self was illuminated enough to see the good from evil. We now live in a new world that has many different challenges and so we have very little choice but to vary our living style. We need to pray with a different emphasis. Our prayers need to be more meaningful and suit the current individual demands and needs of our family life.

Most of these existing universal tunes and melodies of our prayers have been adding a new dimension to the way we offer our prayers but these added adjuncts had never distorted or hidden the real and valuable meanings of these prayers. My family always felt that prayers must be meaningful, short, sweet and satisfying to everyone, so much so that they should produce and vibrate a complete tranquillity within and around us.

I have done many sacrifices in my life for my family, my friends, my people and my country but I have not received the total support from any of these institutions. Therefore, I feel that complete renunciation of work for personal profit is not possible. We should be adequately compensated and rewarded for anything we do for anybody. This does not have to be of monetary nature alone but could be at least in the expression of kind words and deeds. To be kind and candid is my religion. I want all human beings to behave in this manner for me and then I would love to reciprocate.

My philosophy dictates that all work or sacrifice that makes us happy and gives us benefits should be done to the best of our ability and recognized with adequate compensation and reward. Any form of charity, sacrifice and austerity should be done with self interest and when time and opportunity warrant. Some people can do more of these than others but that does not make the others any more important, blessed, deprived or sinful.

Threefold fruits of all work or sacrifice are desirable, undesirable and mixed. If people need to work for their living then it becomes desirable but if the work is for any sinful purpose then it is undesirable. For many of us, our work or sacrifice is mixed because we are not sure if what we are doing is legitimate or not. Whenever I was not sure of the work I was doing, I stopped doing it and changed my course.

Then with old beliefs and practices we get confused and seek advice. Our religious books give us greater confusion and we need to follow these very carefully and dispassionately. I have tried to perform my duties and obligations desirably and have never hesitated from taking the rightful reward. I always fought for the rights of everybody but they themselves must be responsible. This was the reason I joined with the Organizations and Methods of the Fiji Government in 1963 to improve the working and financial conditions of all the poorly paid teachers of the country. That Job Evaluation exercise changed the lives of all teachers in Fiji and in fact gave them a qualitative status.  

We perform all our right or wrong actions using our thoughts, words and deeds. People with the necessary wisdom and knowledge decide to take wiser actions but an ignorant person can take wrong actions. An unpolluted-minded doer reaps the desirable fruits of his or her labour but those that are ignorant, unwise and lack the necessary knowledge, often suffer the bad consequences of their actions. We must leave them to reach their own conclusions in the end but be always prepared to give them good guidance where possible.

Knowledge for me has been of three kinds as well; good, passionate and irrational. If any person takes actions according to good knowledge then the fruit of it leads to truth, beauty and goodness. The knowledge, by which one is able to differentiate good things from evil, real things from unreal and acceptable aspects from unacceptable, is passionate. The irrational, baseless or worthless knowledge makes us cling to one single effect that mostly gives us darkness and ignorance. Whoever appreciates these aspects of knowledge knows that knowledge is power.

Our actions can be obligatory when we perform our duties without any likes and dislikes and without any selfish motives to enjoy the fruits of our labour. This is good and acceptable action. Then an action performed with ego, selfish motives and with too much effort is passionate action but the action taken because of delusion, disregarding consequences, loss, injury to self and others is regarded as ignorant and an unacceptable action. I have been responsible for all my actions whether they were good, bad, or ugly.

We all have intellect and accordingly we make our various resolves. The resolve that understands the correct path of work, differentiates the right from the wrong act, knows fear and fearlessness, clarifies bondage and libration is a good resolve. However, the resolve that craves for the fruits of work, clings to duty, wealth and pleasures with great attachment is a passionate resolve. An ignorant resolve is the one by which a dull person does not give up laziness, sleep, fear, grief, despair and carelessness. I am proud of the fact that my resolves have always benefitted me and wherever and whenever I reached an ignorant resolve I used my knowledge to get out of the problem.

We all love pleasures in our lives and the pleasure that ceases all our sorrows and enables us to enjoy spiritual practices appears as poison in the beginning but is like nectar in the end and it comes to us by grace of self knowledge. This self knowledge has given me the courage to differentiate between the fairy tales and the truth that are in our religious books. I have learnt the hard way not to perform any tasks that are not logical to my mind be they political, religious or financial.

On the other hand the pleasure that appears nectar in the beginning but becomes poison in the end is passionate pleasure. The pleasure that confuses us in the beginning and in the end makes us lazy and ignorant is harmful. I tried to fully understand and appreciate these pleasures and put them into practice as best as my life could dictate. I am happy for taking all these actions.

These are the reasons for the original civilized people to establish division of labour according to one’s ability for the smooth organization of our society. There are four categories based on the qualities inherent in people’s nature or natural propensities and not necessarily as one’s birth right. We are all born equal. These categories are achievable through effort, perseverance and hard work. No one is born a doctor, or a teacher or a carpenter but we have to learn these skills.

Firstly, there are intellectuals, who are supposed to have the needed serenity, self control, austerity, purity, patience, honesty, transcendental knowledge and experience and they believe in the power of the Supreme Being. We can call them Gyanis but Hindus wrongly call them Brahmans. Intellectuals for me are not born as such but they make themselves wiser, knowledgeable and worthy of performing better than others. So for me there are no born Brahmans as there are no born doctors, teachers or nurses. We all can achieve the intellectual status through our acquired education and knowledge.

Secondly, there are those who show the qualities of heroism, vigor, firmness, dexterity, steadfastness in battle and peace, clarity and administrative skills. They may also have some or all of the qualities of the intellectuals and we call them Rakchaks but Hindus have given them the name, Chatriyas. No chatriya is born as such as well because to have all these skills you must develop them to become real saviors of others.

Thirdly, there are those people who are good at cultivation, cattle rearing, business, trade and industry that we can give them the title of Jimidars or as Hindus call them Vaishyas. These are the backbones of our agriculture and business world.

Finally, there are those important people in our community who are very good in giving their unreserved service and are able to perform all labour type of work. We call them Sewaks but sadly Hindus have culled a derogatory name for them, Sudras, the untouchables. They are the teachers, nurses and the like.

After correctly interpreting what Lord Krishna said to Arjun in Geeta Chapter 18, I strongly feel that all the four divisions or castes as shown there have the ability, freedom and opportunity of movement within these categories. There is no hierarchy in these categories because all are equally important for the proper welfare of the society.

These categories cannot be determined as a birth right of any person but they are achieved and attained, changed and transformed as the human skills and qualities improve or deteriorate. This division of labour is universally accepted but no one has ever condoned and supported the caste system that the old Hindu thinking produced.

Sadly enough our traditional Hindu society regarded it as a caste system and gave it a very derogatory image but we are glad that this has changed with the time and now many branches of religion rightfully condemn the negativity of the caste system. However, it is indeed very sad that many individuals of Hindu faith still cling to this wrong practice and discriminate each other only because they have not been able to rightfully understand and interpret Chapter 18 of their holy book Geeta. I have labored to elaborate this aspect only because I strong feel that it is erroneous.

I am sure if my grandparents remained in India rather than exported and uprooted to Fiji, they would have done the same to raise, motivate and nurture us and we would have moved to become anyone like the modern Indians. However, life in Fiji was very simple but quite challenging for me. I thank my parents and grandparents who instilled into me the needed courage to grow up differently.

I have always thought of myself as a rash man. I was quick to anger and prone to swift decisions but despite these short comings I always liked to consider every facet of any choice, peering at each aspect of my life as it were the edge of a diamond, examined under a microscope. As a result of these developments I came out as the winner.

I have been an academic both in profession and nature and tried to move out of stark poverty to a modest middle class living. As I said before, change has been a constant aspect of my life and I welcomed any change in my disposition and personality with pleasure. However, change for the sake of change has never been my cup of tea. This is the reason I am different and I enjoy my family life. I love this personal development.

I also appreciate that many times continuity becomes the right answer for good family life. I continued to do whatever I thought was rational and right in the circumstances. I had no fear of any criticism when I moved away from norm to new way of thinking because my conscience was dictating my actions. I also believed that everything that happened in this world happened for a reason. Consequently my growing up was very meaningful for me.

Three hallmarks of sanity for me have always been my discipline, intellect and emotion. I believed in lineage and light, in form and function, in the beauty of things and aspects built to last. In many aspects of living I honored continuity and peace that came with it. Again while change is a constant aspect of living, I feel change just for the sake of change is useless. Change for the better is more meaningful.

My birth, I am told, was very symbolic, because I was born in my grandparents’ home during world war two. My grandmother welcomed me into this world by putting a drop of honey in my mouth so that despite the world being violently at war I would always have a sweet tongue. I do not know whether this was her superstition or a firm belief but I do not think I have ever knowingly disappointed her. It was a very logical move.

My birth was celebrated with almost as much spectacle as the birth of my namesake Lord Ram in the Hindu scriptures. Sweets were distributed throughout the village, alms given and if one looked hard enough one could have even seen flowers being sprinkled from the heavens.

I am not sure if I managed to do justice to my grandmother’s wishes but I always tried to be sweet to everyone around me whether they received me sweetly or with bitterness. I may have paid dearly for such ethical and practical way of living. My existence has been normal, thoughtful and simple but wise, difficult and fruitful.

My grandparents, who were brought from India as indentured workers by the British in the early 1900, chose to live in Fiji after their indenture was complete because they were given this choice.  They wanted to start afresh here rather than return to where they were uprooted from against their wishes. They settled in Botini in Sabeto with their extended family in the homestead that housed my parents, my two uncles and seven aunts. Since I was the first born I was the pride of the family and was looked after like a very precious commodity.                   

Through sheer hard work and determination my parents became great farmers and worked on the four large farms owned by my grandparents. My father was an intelligent man who had the privilege of attending primary school in those days when education was not as important as making ones ends meet. The family lived in an extended social structure where all were for one and one was for all. This became the most basic principle of a successful joint family.

He believed that he was a man of routine but he had many adventures in his adult life. One dark night while fishing with some friends in the deep Pacific Ocean near Naisoso he was separated from his companions and was almost drowned. He was rescued by his younger brother Chetram.

His second adventure was when he was testing a home assembled rifle that discharged a bullet which struck his ankle but could have been more dangerous and even fatal. He limped all his life but learnt his lesson. After this incident my grandfather asked him to sit in a special prayer for twenty one days to destroy the evil spell.

Although he did not fully believe in such superstitious practices he had to reluctantly conduct the whole ceremony because that was the order of his parents. My father instead felt that more care and caution in life could be the answer for our safer living.

His third adventure was a lot more dangerous one and could have ended his life. His childhood friend Ori Prasad joked with him and challenged him to swim cross the rapidly flowing flooded Sabeto River. Before his friend could clarify that he was only joking, my father jumped into the very swiftly flowing and muddy river full of debris to start the challenge. He was hit by a floating log and seeing this Ori also jumped to try to rescue his childhood friend.

Fortunately, my father reached the other side of the river some two kilometers downstream but unfortunately his friend Ori never made it. His body was found after several days at the delta.

My father lost his friend in a prank. Death has a way of evening things out. It is unrelenting. This silly adventure was a cause of temporary mental disturbance for my father but I am told that he abstained from eating any meat for thirty six months as repentance. These are some of the ways my father disciplined himself.

While growing up I experienced the death of my father in my arms when lightening struck him in 1956. I was working with him in his pawpaw farm when it started raining heavily. He asked me to run home for shelter. While I was running up the hill towards home, a severe thunder and lightening occurred. I turned back to see my father’s body move up and fall on the ground with a thud. I ran to help him and witnessed that there was no life in him. He lay on the ground still. Thank God I had just completed my First Aid Course at Natabua and immediately started using my skills to revive him.

In the shock his teeth were locked and mouth tightly shut. I used my thumb to open his mouth and pull his tongue that was stuck in his throat. It took several minutes of mouth to mouth resuscitation and I could see some life come back in him so I used my hand cup to collect a bit of water that had collected in the hoof mark made by animals. I put the water in his mouth and with a gulp he woke up. I know not from where I got the strength to lift him on my back and carry him home, a distance of about 200 meters.

I was glad that I brought my father back from hell and he never forgot that episode of his life and my quick thinking to save his life. I did my duty as a son.

My mother on the other hand never saw the doorstep of any formal school. She was illiterate but very wise in her dealings with people and various aspects of family life. She called a spade a spade, so to speak, and was a very straight shooter. As a result of this inherent behavior she never had many friends and led a solitary life. I remember that for many years she sung the song of my bravery in saving her husband’s life.

My childhood was extremely interesting for various reasons. I was growing up in an environment that had a lot of compassion, love and comfort of the family on the one hand and violence, commotion and disturbance of the prevailing world war two, on the other. My family made it sure that my early childhood struck a very good balance between these two extremes. I was brought up with a lot of tender loving care by my extended family.

My favorite aunt Guddi, who was only twelve when I was born, carried me in her arms whenever she saw me crawling in the yard of the farmstead because as she put it, she did not want me to get dirty. She was always very protective of me while I was growing up in the village as if I was her favourite doll. She always tried to keep me away from any evil or bad influence.                

Later in my life I found out that she always prayed for me, she played with me and she asserted a special authority on me. I was her favorite doll indeed. I had a special place for her when I grew up. It was very early in my life that I learnt that women lit up our homes as daughters, sisters, wives, aunts and mothers and they needed to be honoured and respected.

When the family priest Mathura Maharaj was called to draw up my horoscope, (my janam kundali) my aunt made it sure that he used the right scriptures to interpret the astrological symbols. When the priest announced that my name should start with the letter “R”, my aunt was very happy because she wanted my name to be Ramlakhan. The priest had forecasted that I would have a pleasant and rewarding life to enjoy good health until I turned seventy five. Any more years of life after that would be a bonus from the Supreme Power.

She told everyone in the family the reason for the name. Ramlakhan was the name culled out from the names of Lord Ram and his brother Laksman. To bestow the name Ramlakhan to me was to see that I loved my people and in return I would be loved by everyone. I would be doubly blessed to grow up well in the family and the society.

My father, who never paid much attention to this religious significance, accepted whatever name that was drawn out from the astrological symbols. My grandfather was thrilled with the name because he was a devotee of Lord Ram and he recited Ramayana almost every day. Later in life when I was able to read I used to sit with him to read the Ramayan and listen to his interpretations. His critical appreciation of the epic was very logical. These instilled a special love of literature in me and I was fraught with many contradictory feelings at an early age.

The name Ramlakhan for my grandparents was the perfect answer for the new world they called the Mohini Yug, where all economy, industry and human culture would revolve round the power of influence. Rightly or wrongly my family believed that I was born to exert my influence in this world.

As a child I was like a deer, self-contained, poised, silently watching the world from the intensity of my own space. Everything was my own invention. I played my own games, did my own drawings and even had my own pooja cupboard where I kept clay dolls as the images of my favorite Gods and Goddess. I was led to believe that whatever I wanted in life I could ask these deities to give me and they would always oblige.

I began to explore the sweet, sometimes hot and the many sour side of village living. Our house was built on a hill from where we could see the thriving orchards, vast sugarcane fields, flourishing rice plantations and green vegetable gardens. The mountain range on the border of the village was a spectacular sight because the river that flowed out of it made the farmers happy at all times. Our orchards had a variety of fruits but we loved the mangoes, rock melons and mandarins.

When the mangoes were green, the younger children gathered round the trees with a container called pyala that had salt and tamarind paste in it. The bigger boys climbed up the trees to pick the green mangoes and the bigger girls pealed them with their pen knives for us to enjoy eating the slices by dipping them in the sour mixture. That sour taste of green mangoes and tamarinds made our teeth very sensitive for a while but this did not last long because soon those trees started giving us sweet fruits to forget the sensitivity and sourness.

Then after playing hide and seek in the nearby rice and cane fields the boys and girls gathered under the biggest mango tree to enjoy the special sweetness of this unique fruit. My aunt Guddi would get the best mango for me to suck and eat and she would clean me when the juice from the ripe mangoes made a mess of my clothes, face, arms and legs. On reaching home I remember my grandmother telling me that I smelt like a ripe mango. I loved my growing up.

A small stream of fresh water ran across the property and big nut trees of na-ivi, breadfruit, coconuts, mangoes, and other citrus fruit trees were growing well along both sides of the stream. Fish of various types and eels swam in that stream and during my childhood, I loved fishing there with an old man of our village called Sahadatt, who lived as a hermit in a small thatched house that my father had built for him. He was no relative of our family but a loyal friend who was worth a thousand relatives because of his honesty and helpful nature.

This old man was like a caretaker or a security guard for our farm. He cooked his own meals and many times made me enjoy the good taste of the eel and other curry that he so deliciously prepared. He became my good friend and I enjoyed listening to various stories that he narrated when he was in his good mood. I managed to plant a seed of friendship in this old man and I was able to reap a very healthy bouquet of happiness in my childhood.

On our farm of sugarcane, pineapples, rice and mixed vegetables there was always plenty to do and enjoy. The hilltops were over grown with guava trees that were always laden with fruit for us to pick. Anything that we wanted was on the farm; sugarcane to eat, pineapples to slice, delicious coconuts to drink, mangoes galore, citrus fruits of all kind, pawpaws, melons, cucumbers, rockmelons and many others. That was self-sufficiency at its extreme. The panorama was ecstatic and scenic. 

While picking the fruits and playing in the orchards were real excitement and enjoyable activities for us, we faced a few problems as well. Many of us experienced stings from hornets and the bull ants at times but these did not deter us from taking full advantage of the freedom and enjoyment we got from the village living and rural activities. I still remember the day when I had a centipede sting or bite and the whole family gathered round to treat and comfort me.

The Botini farm was my childhood world, my favourite playground. My love and care of animals was boundless. At our large paddock, among the many Jersey cows and well-bred bulls, we had a few horses and goats. I loved to feed the cows and milk them and to use the oxen and the horses to assist my father in his cultivation. Our fowl yard had many chickens and ducks that provided us regular meat and eggs.

Our life was very simple. We were living in a large thatched house we called our bure. My bed was near the window and I had an enchanting view of the beautiful rural landscape. That unique and colourful panorama of the mountains, rivers, trees and pretty birds is still fresh in my mind. At night, I loved to look at the clear sky and the twinkling stars, which I found very comforting.

Those silent nights of Botini were my early childhood kingdom, my heaven of peace and tranquillity. I used to escape into a life of make- believe, where I was free from all worries and troubles. This was my childhood, my innocence.

As I said before, during my childhood, I loved to play hide and seek with my only brother Vijen and one of my sisters Vidya. One day I hid myself in an old war cave but was surprised to be among the bees that had multiple hives there. Somehow I managed to escape the wrath of the insects with only a few stings but when we narrated this episode to our father he used his skills to extract many bottles of pure honey that lasted us a few months and made me forget the nasty pains of those bee stings.

It was against this backdrop that my parents were always eager to practise great experiments on their farm and the Agriculture Department of Fiji assisted them with advice, seeds, and seedlings of potatoes, citrus fruits and other vegetables. The vegetable section on our farm produced enormous amounts of beans, cabbages, corn, cucumber, melons and similar crops. These farm produce were regularly harvested by us and delivered to the Lautoka and Nadi Markets every Friday on our own family truck for sale to the urban dwellers. Our Saturdays were full of fun when we became sales people at these vegetable and fruit markets helping our father.

Such were the rural and village luxuries I enjoyed on the farm when I was a primary school child at Sabeto Indian School from 1946 to 1953 and a secondary student at Natabua High School from 1954 to 1957. Travelling to and from the schools by various means was not always easy and comfortable but a necessary part of my life because the schools were located far from home.

It had never occurred to me that a child could not like learning. My father filled this truism into me when he used to do his style of teaching at home. During these teaching sessions, he would have nothing else to give his love but his wisdom, his real self and me. When I asked him questions about religion and God, I always got the best of his answers.

After looking at my pooja cupboard and my doll deities, he told me that God was not in these things. He was in our heart and we can feel His presence when we breathe in. God resides in us and He is the life force in every breath we take in. God was not in the statues or pictures but we can love these images just as we love the feeling in us.

As I mentioned before my father told me that no one had seen God and all the images that people displayed of God were their own imagination. I was asked to make a unique image of God in my mind and stick to it as my guide for my future prosperity. I found that the image of my God resembled my father.

We travelled to school on foot, on horseback, using a bike and later mostly by bus transport. The travelling to and from school made us very tired at times but school work, our teachers, the variety of activities and faithful friends cheered us up. These journeys to and from school were our places of learning as well. We read our books, studied the behaviour and conduct of the people around us and looked at and appreciated the ever-changing environment.

Life went on wonderfully well because every day brought new discoveries and experiences for us. These informal learning adventures enriched our way of life and gave us a very firm foundation to keep moving ahead with determination and vigour. School equipment, books and other stationery were always in limited supply and we had to share these or go without them but we survived.

During my school days, I worked on our goat and cattle farms as a herdsman and acted as a cowboy on many occasions. I also did a lot of ploughing, planting, weeding, hoeing, grazing and harvesting using our pairs of oxen and finely bred farm horses. No farm work was too hard for me and I could work equally well in the vegetable gardens, fruit, pineapple and sugarcane farms. So much so, that my father had to ask me to slow down and concentrate on my schoolwork, so I had to divert my energy and move on in this educationally progressive direction.

Horse riding was one of my best leisure activities.  My brown horse was called Goldie but I also had a good bicycle called Hercules. These two means of transport took me to many surrounding areas of larger Sabeto. Visits to the seaside, the Sabeto River and the Mount Evans Range, now called the Sleeping Giant, were always on our list of proposed destinations when my father allowed us to go with my friends for a spin. I was regarded as one of the best equestrians and an unchallenged cyclist in the village.

These past time activities were of tremendous value and great benefit for me because in the process I became friendly with the people I came to know. Soon I was able to comprehend that friendship was like a slow ripening fruit when I had developed a chain of faithful friends in the village. Later in life, I found out that these friends were always prepared to overlook my faults and failures and celebrated my success when I excelled and became a brilliant scholar and a role model for them.

I vividly remember a day when I was riding my horse from Botini, our farm and homestead to our goat paddock. I was riding to Sipia in Votualevu, where our goat paddock was and Goldie ran into a hornets’ nest. He was stung by these disturbed hornets and went berserk, started running wildly, and would not stop despite my many attempts and efforts to calm him down. I knew I was at a risk of being thrown over, so I had to act and act fast I did.

I came across a pandanus tree, held on to the hanging branch to let me slip from the back of the horse, and let the horse keep running. In the process, the branch of the tree broke and I fell heavily with the branch to the ground. This impact created a dent in my backbone and it has given a lot of problem ever since. My initial reflex was to look around me to make sure that nobody had witnessed my humiliation. Wasn’t I one of the best equestrians in the village?

My uncle Govind found Goldie after about two hours. Goldie was cooling himself in the nearby Votualevu River. Uncle Govind had arranged for my treatment at the Outpatient department at Nadi Hospital. Doctor Mukherji treated me for scratches and cuts but he warned me to take special care of my backbone because it was going to give me a lot of trouble later in life. He was very precise with his diagnosis because that pain has been bothering me ever since.

I hurt my back and lost my horse because my father then decided to sell the horse to stop me getting into any further troubles. There were no more horse rides for me but my bike came as a substitute to my local travelling. Checking of mail and visiting friends and family members became easy on this means of transport.

Right at the start of my teenage years I had gone through a dramatic phase of opposition to just everything. This phase had lasted for only a couple of months but just enough to bring me into conflict with almost everything and everybody around me. I used to wonder whether this was merely something that would pass like so many moments of my normal growing up and adolescent development.

I thought a lot about a predictable vision of my future even at this tender age but I was fortunate to have such calming social agents around me like my aunt Guddi, my uncle Chetram, my younger brother Vijen, my faithful friends and my teachers who carefully guided me out of this dilemma of adolescent craze and revolt.

Of course, at times, I did engage in a risk or two and in the process, I lost some good friends. I tried smoking; drinking grog and engaging in some violent activities with the boys living in the next village but soon some realisation must have come into me to opt out of that wrong path. Here I am truly thankful to my father who saw me making these mistakes and corrected me at the right time. He rightfully nipped my faults in the bud.

My father gave me an almost perfect answer to my question of ethics when I asked him, “How do you know when you are doing something wrong?”

He stopped for a while and then told me something like this, “Beta, each one of us has the right to supreme fulfilment through right action. If our actions are guided by our inner truth then we are happy. Any action of ours that makes us unhappy should reveal that we are doing something wrong and we should then correct ourselves and do the right thing immediately. It is this sound practice that leads us to perfection and if we do not practise, we will certainly lose touch with the force that guides us. This is self realisation.”

After these incidents and a few other similar ones, I became like the clay on a potter’s wheel, constantly turning, being shaped and waiting for the heat blast from the furnace to finish me. So things started taking shape again and I began to feel I was a reformed individual moving to my predictable future. I was now within the standard parent-child dynamics again.

The rebuilding of my social fabrics took a few months but when many of the loose ends were settled, I began to act as my parents directed me. I managed to reconcile almost all the comedy of errors of my existence. I owed a prayer for my elders every single night for the rest of my life for the way they guided me during these turbulent times. I could have been the most spoilt child of the age but I became the best boy of the village.

My friends started coming back to me. My leisure activities resumed. I made various fishing trips to the nearby Wailoaloa Beach and the Sabeto River with my friends Satnarayan and Saddik. We brought home enough catch of fish, crabs and prawns to make my parents happy because the catch provided good meals for all of us. It was on these platforms that I learnt the camaraderie of sharing, giving and receiving.

These trips were made once a month but were of great interest and refreshment for us because they gave a lot of outlet for our emotions. We learnt the art of patience and love of outdoor life. We consolidated our friendship by trivial chatting and being on our own. That was our rural life and we enjoyed it very much. One of the greatest lessons we learnt from these expeditions was the idea of sharing and giving. We shared our catch with great care and if there were too many items then we would give them to our neighbours.

The social interactions of these young days made me understand that true friendship provided us great emotional support, cognitive guidance and many tangible help. My village friends are still important to me when I visit them because they not only bring back the soothing memories but also give me a lot of happiness. The more I meet my old friends, the greater becomes my understanding of the deep friendship of Lord Krishna with Balram and Sudama as narrated in the Hindu scriptures.

I remember making a few trips to that mountain range that is now called the Sleeping Giant to hunt for wild goats. This was very difficult adventure for us because the goats would run wild on the high rocks and we would be left behind with our traps and snares. However, there were times when after spending the whole day we managed to get a few in our traps. We had to kill the goats and clean the carcasses and brought only the meat with us. Carrying the bag full of meat was always a problem but my horse Goldie was our help until it was sold.

On a few occasions, I accompanied my father to enjoy pigeon shooting and I remember that our hunting and shootings were also very good because in those days, very few people had guns and there were no such restrictions as the gaming licence. The difficulty that we encountered in shooting and bringing the birds home was well compensated when my mother made delicious curry in the evening for us to enjoy. The adult members of the family enjoyed the chaser of dry pigeon meat with their homebrew and we children had the opportunity to eat that meat to our hearts’ content. Our drink was the lemon drink called sharbat made from the fruits of our orchard.

As I said before my mother never went to school and did not have any reading and writing skills but she had many good human qualities. She was a very powerful woman who controlled her children well. She was an excellent cook and displayed extreme passion and understanding when she interacted with her children. She could not help us with our schoolwork but she guided us to lead a good life. I always had a great admiration for her commitment and empathy. At times, she had to be cruel to be kind during our adolescent years. In retrospect, I believe she was right in enforcing her kind of discipline on us.

People say I have learnt most of my values from my parents and they may be right because a lot of my social communication style, my general human interaction and my daily conduct have come from my parents. I am proud of the fact that despite their limited literacy skills they were able to do so much for me. When it comes to my mother’s care and control, I am often reminded of the opening line of Ravindranath’s poem: Amma teri mamta ka nahi koi mol. O mother! No true value could be placed on your love and affection towards me.

My family members called me Lakhan in those days but my mother called me Barkana, which meant the eldest. I started my formal education at Sabeto Indian School in 1946 from Class 1 and finished my primary school studies there in 1953. My formative years were of average academic standard but I began to excel from Class 6 onwards and was a role model for many village students.

I was always among the top three students at school but my sporting activities were limited to some soccer and hockey games only. I loved sports and athletics but there were not many opportunities to participate and compete in those days. Once a while, when various schools met at the Young Farmers’ Club markets and sports festivals we happily participated. I remember winning a few certificates at these gatherings that were called ulloo bazaar.

My reading activities were limited to reciting from the Holy Books-Ramayana and Bhagwat Gita for my grandparents and parents and the Jungle Book and the New Method English Readers at school. There were no public libraries in those days and the school library had only a limited collection. Our bedtime and leisure stories were the oral traditional stories of myths and legends that our grandparents and parents narrated to us. This is the reason why I am able to rightly interpret our religious beliefs.

I did not have the luxury of bedtime story reading. However, whenever we got our supply of bread and other goods from the town shops, the items were wrapped with pages of old newspaper. My father collected these for us to read and at times, he tested us by asking us to read the news items aloud to him and then explain the contents therein. I enjoyed these sessions with my parents because they gave us time to interact and bond with them. I had nothing to fear from the printed pages because they always offered me knowledge but never asked me questions.

While I was at primary school, I participated in many dramatic activities at the local temple, where the religious drama activities of Ram Lila, Krishna Lila and Lav Kush Lila were dramatised on stage for the public to enjoy. These were conducted at the hall at nights for weeks and I enjoyed acting the role of Lord Rama. I was barely twelve years old but I had incredible energy. I used my youthfulness and naivety to help me fulfil my childhood dreams.

My grandfather was the playwright, director, choreographer and conductor creating excellent religious drama for the audience. We sang, danced, mimed and acted enthusiastically to please the people of the village. My father was the president of the Sanatan Dharam Mandali of Sabeto and he acted as our stage manager. After the stage work was over, we had our dinner there. We enjoyed the dhal, rice and chutney prepared so skilfully by my grandfather, who was a great cook in times of need.

All my teachers were very good and worked hard. They were Ram Kissun, Vijendra Sudhakar, Ramendra Dutt Mishra, Ram Krishnan and Gaj Raj Singh. The head master at that time was Rameshwar Prasad. Rameshwar Prasad inculcated a love of hard work and a habit of dedicated study into me when I was told that he completed his Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Teaching degrees by correspondence from University of London in those days of horse and buggy. This display of academic excellence was unheard of in those early times. I remember telling my friends that one day I will beat my head master’s record by doing my degree as well. The day I completed my first degree in 1974 I thanked my teacher Rameshwar Prasad for inspiring me.

All these were exceptionally brilliant teachers fully dedicated to keep us working hard and progressing. They taught us facts, figures, faith and fortune. I could not have asked for any better deal at school because I got the best at all times, maybe because the school community very well knew my father. This excellent teaching environment and my father’s active involvement in the school affairs may have been a deciding factor for me to develop skills to become a teacher myself.

One of my regrets of my primary school days was when I accidentally hurt the headmaster’s daughter Radha and then offered her some lollies to forgive me. She was a very pretty girl and I may have had some liking for her. She reported the matter to her father and I was called to the headmaster’s office and punished. We were classmates but after this incident, we did not talk to each other for ages until she visited our house in Nadi in 1988 when she was a doctor in Wellington in New Zealand.

She is no more but she was a charming woman who was one of those people who made me a good student. I made every effort to beat her in all the subjects at school. Later in life I found out that  she was a good friend and classmate of my wife when she was a border at Dudley House. We did talk about our childhood stupidity and made up with a delicious dinner prepared for her. However, she died of cancer in Wellington a few years later.

While attending Sabeto Indian School, I was usually walking on foot to and from school, a distance of about ten kilometres daily with my uncle and aunts. Sometimes my uncle Chetram used to give me a ride on his bicycle. Other times he used to go on a horseback and took me piggyback or as a double rider. Walking that distance on gravel and dusty road was no problem at all. With no shoes on our feet, it acted as a very good exercise for our mind and body.

Like my aunt Guddi, my uncle Chetram was my mentor during my childhood. He was my hero who could do miracles like climbing the coconut trees, keeping me safe from the bullies at school and providing me with the best of chocolates that the American soldiers gave him. My uncle and my father both worked as volunteers for the American Army and exchanged the variety of garden produce with whatever they were given in addition to the money.

On a few occasions, I did manage to return some of the favours that my uncle Chetram gave me. I helped him with his fight with a village bully Shrikant who used to meet and challenge my uncle in the village grounds for an illegal duel. Seeing my uncle at the verge of distress in this fight, I reluctantly joined in to defeat his opponent in such a fashion that there never was another call for a duel ever from either Shrikant or any Kant.

I loved my uncle and to do this was fair play for me at that time. There was no question of ethics involved here but it was just a spontaneous reaction to assist a family member. He and his wife, my Kaki, helped and guided me throughout my early childhood, my school days and my early family life.

During the war, my father had also received a lot of arms and ammunition from the soldiers in exchange for his services and garden products and these were kept in his private arsenal. My memories of the gunshots and the sounds of dynamites are still fresh because these were great excitement for us.

A year after the War ended in 1945, the police charged my father for possessing illegal arms and ammunition but his solicitor AD Patel convinced the magistrate that during the war the soldiers were so careless that they left the weapons all over the fields that they occupied at that time. They could not prove that the weapons were my father’s property. Temporarily a kind of détente was reached between the authorities and my father.

However, after he was discharged he foolishly challenged the authorities to face him in a battlefield situation for three hours. Although the people did not take him seriously, he was again searched for the similar offence. When the police could not find any weapons they tried to assault him physically and then he got furious with them and caused chaos for a few senior inspectors. The court of law again discharged him declaring the event as a riot and his action as self-defence.

My recollection of hidden weapons is very vivid in my mind. When the police came to search our property in 1946 I was a six-year-old boy running in the yard with only a loose shirt on. The officers asked me to tell them where my father kept his guns. I knew that the weapons were hidden in the cavity of the dry pandanus branches lying in the compound but I took them to the cow shed. There to their surprise, I lifted my shirt, showed them my private parts, and ran away. I remember the fury of my grandfather for this mis- behaviour.

The legal authorities were so annoyed with their defeat that they alleged another criminal offence on my father in 1947. This time he was charged for dealing illegally in the sale and distribution of liquor. Because of fabricated evidences planted by the police department that could not be ruled out, he was rightly or wrongly sentenced to serve a prison term of three months.

His life changed altogether, when he returned from his reformatory. This turn around in his life made him a good person.  My father then became a serious family man and never looked back on the foolish and silly activities of his younger days during and after the wartime. A properly reformed man, he dedicated rest of his life to his family, his community and his village reforms.

When the war was over and my father had returned to his normal family life I was enrolled as a pupil in Class 1 with no knowledge of school life at all. There was no early childhood education or kindergarten experience in those days. My life at school in the first year was a traumatic experience and I ran away from school several times because of fear of the teachers and uncertainty of a secure atmosphere.

My uncle and aunt who accompanied me to school ensured that I received the needed consolation so gradually I got used to the system and continued to attend classes reluctantly. The school that was dead for me in the beginning came alive all because of the kindness and empathy that I gathered from my early childhood teachers such as Purnima Devi and Chand Kuar.  Things began to reconstruct themselves when the teachers showed empathy towards me and provided me with the necessary motivation to continue my schooling. When I got into gear, I never looked back but kept moving ahead.

During my primary days, I used to work on my father’s farms of rice, pineapple, sugarcane and lentils and go to the markets with my father to sell the items on Saturdays at the CSR Compound in Lautoka where the market day used to be organised. These were one of the most interesting selling experiences and interactions with the business and other communities and I learnt a lot from these involvements and activities.

My father had many regular customers only because his products were always clean, fresh and well displayed. My father was fundamentally a different type of vendor for the customers because he cared about their needs and wants. He always spoke kindly to them, gave them tender loving care and good service.

The days when our supplies were more than the demand and we were left with some of our products, we had to throw these in the nearby paddock where the cows enjoyed eating them. My father would not sell them cheaply or give these free to anyone. Instead, he was very happy to witness the scene when the cows of Maan Singh Dairy farm munched the vegetables away slowly with special interest. This paradigm of circumstances confused me in the beginning but when I understood the ethic behind feeding the domesticated animals, I could see that as a Hindu my father was doing nothing more than just feeding the sacred cows.

Milking of cows and goats was one my favourite farm activities. Then the rule was to boil your milk and extract the butterfat from the yoghurt the next day using a bamboo extractor in a large four-litre container. Of course, it was my duty to get fresh green para and guinea grass for my cows and goats in order that they continued to provide us with a lot of fresh milk. These were difficult chores but interesting and soothing to my soul.

One of the ideas that got ingrained into me after my father constantly and continuously motivated me was the concept of hard and quality work. Therefore, whatever I did, I did it well and with all the interest and enthusiasm. There was no farming activity that I could not perform well but while doing those I never faltered in my studies. My commitment to all my tasks was very solid and deep.

It was through these quintessential paths that my parents built for me that I found my upward mobility easy and smooth. My parents were poor in the beginning but that was no excuse for their inadequacies. As transformation of circumstances developed, they learnt to persevere and cleared the slippery rung of their ladder of progress through hard work and determination. I shared the same anxiety, commitments, ambitions and adaptations to move ahead with pride. We developed a different outlook to life generally when we came out from rag to riches. We were classed as one of the richest farmers in the area all because of our diversification and hard work but we always remained humble.

I had the opportunity to learn some aspects of sexual behaviour by accident. A neighbour of ours named Zhinnu had two grown up daughters Sridevi and Bhanmati, who did not go to school. A married farmer, Bacchuram who was living next to their house had developed a relationship with Bhanmati. I found out about this accidentally when I visited their home one-day to collect some items for our farm. Since no one answered my knock at the door, I looked through the window and to my surprise, I saw Bacchu and Bhan having intimate sexual relationship. Without their knowledge, I kept watching their intimate behaviour from the cracks of the window.

However, one day they saw me peeping through the window. My accidental sexual education ended there. Bacchuram  ran away for fear that I would tell the secret to his family. Bhanmati called me, offered me some reward, and asked me not to reveal the secret to anyone. I kept it a secret for a long time because it was one of my private tuitions that gave me some aspects of sex education when I was an adolescent. The other reason to keep it a secret was to save the two families from any disgrace in the community.

However, it was having an adverse effect on my conscience so I let it out to one of my cousins long before Bhanmati was married, divorced and committed suicide. My cousin Vedh in turn used this secret information as a weapon to extract some sexual favours from his classmate Sridevi, Bhan’s sister.

Had I known that this was a possibility I would have suffered silently than to be a reason of dispute in my cousin’s family life. I regretted the whole affair but could not do anything. Tell or not to tell became my problem but I managed to overcome this by joining the village Ramayan Mandali and reciting the Dohas of Tulsidas and Balmiki. Two couplets from the epic Ramayan that gave me solace were:

Kaliyug taran upaay na koi,

Raam Bhajan Ramaayan doi   and

Kaliyug yug san aan nahi jo nar kari biswaas

Gaaye Raam Gungaan Bimal Bhawtaraheen bin prayaas

There are times in the life of a person when a slight mistake or slip leads to a greater tragedy and this episode was one of those that have been haunting me. In retrospect, I should have had the courage of my conviction to tell all to everyone concerned whether they would have believed me or not is another matter.

My fear was that Bacchuram and Bhanmati as adults would have declared my story as false and I would have been punished instead. For some time I carried a package of anger within me towards this episode in my life. Reluctantly I turned to my religious scriptures to help me get rid of this error and feeling. In the process, I became richer in religious knowledge and gained better understanding of Hinduism.

Later in life I wrote extensively to advocate that Hindu religion was a way of life that needed some changes and I received various supporting comments and views.

I am not any expert on religion but a common Hindu who thinks for himself. The views presented here are solely for intelligent discussion and not as an argument or any form of debate. The readers are free to make their own conclusions dispassionately after reading these remarks.

Change has been a constant aspect of our living. History has revealed that we have experienced a variety of cultural, social and religious changes in our lifetime. It is believed by many people that our way of life needs a change if it does not meet the demands and requirements of the current situations.

Religious practices have been modified or changed if they became too rigid for any group of people. Hinduism has had many changes where wise people went on different paths but kept the initial beliefs. As time went by we saw the emergence of Arya Samajis, Kabir Panthis, Buddhists and others like the Saibaba followers. All these came about because people thought that necessary changes were needed.

Hinduism has had many internal changes as well. From time to time we have seen the emergence of a great lawgiver. He would codify the existing laws and remove those, which had become obsolete. He would make some alterations, adaptations, readjustments, additions and deletions to suit the needs of the time and see that the way of living of the people would be in accordance with the teachings of the Vedas.

We Hindus have seen that of such lawgivers, Manu, Yajnavalkya and Parasara were the most celebrated persons. They gave us their Smritis or laws and institutes. These laws and institutes were intended for a particular period and time and were never intended to go on forever.

These laws and rules of Hinduism, which are based entirely upon our social positions, time, climate and region, have been changing. It follows therefore that it must change with the changes in society and the changing conditions of time and clime. If this happens with consensus of the people it affects, then and then only the progress of the Hindu society can be ensured.

Many Hindus agree that it is not possible to follow some of the laws of Manu at the present time and in places like UK, Australia, USA, Canada and other overseas countries where Hindus have migrated. Maybe people are rightly questioning some of the practices that need change. Of course, we can always follow their spirit.

Our society is advancing and when any society, like ours, advances, it outgrows certain laws, which were valid and helpful at a particular time and stage of its growth. Many new aspects, which were not thought out by the old lawgivers have come into existence now. Many people believe that it is no use insisting that people should follow those old laws, which have become obsolete.

Our body needs food to function but we cannot live by food alone. As we grow up and receive or are given the needed knowledge we wish to attain some form of realisation. It is natural that we then look for a lot more reasons to live than the other animals do. A time comes when all the worldly prosperity and prestige do not give us full satisfaction in life. We seek wisdom, knowledge and peace of our mind.

We gradually want some form of spiritual consolation, a bit of solace and maybe peace in our life. We do not have to stick to and live in the past to achieve these phenomenons. Change in many respects brings progress.

It is at this time of our life that we look to some form of religion to give us some happiness and better understanding about our world we live in and the human society we interact with generally. We realise that there is a Supreme Power somewhere that created everything for us. We know that we have to bind our soul to that Supreme Power known as God. This then makes us somewhat religious. It is this comprehension of religion that reveals to us the way for the attainment of human peace, progress and prosperity. We differentiate our living from that of other animal existence.

Depending on the place of our birth, our association with each other and our family history we look toward a certain belief and either remain a Hindu or convert to any of the many other religions of the world. Whatever is our religious belief, ultimately we have to behave as good human beings. Good human beings attain goodness, truth and beauty in their words, thoughts and deeds. Any deviation from these sound and solid aspects of living makes us alienate and we tend to differ in our human conduct and behaviour to be corrected through the processes of social or religious justice.

Hinduism is one of the oldest religions and the people who follow these principles and practices are known as Hindus. Unlike other religions, Hinduism is neither founded by any prophet nor has it any fixed dates. It should be free from religious fanaticism. It is an eternal religion based on the Vedas that were expressions of intuitive experiences of the sages of those days.

Therefore, we can say that Hinduism is a revealed religion. If it is so then some realistic changes are not only necessary but needed if it wants to survive the modern pressures of living and just criticism.

We cannot run away from the fact that our present society has considerably changed. Maybe there is a need and necessity for a new Smriti or religious laws to suit the requirements of this age. Another sage like Manu would have to emerge and place before us new and suitable codes of practices and laws. I certainly feel that the time is ripe for a new Smriti or law for Hinduism.

This will make our younger generation of Hindu families to better appreciate and fully understand the purpose of their religion. We all are able to hear some of the valid objections of this new generation but in our religious pride we attempt to force our own views on to them and are not able to think dispassionately to assist them. The children either withdraw altogether and change their religious paths or are fed up with religious fanaticism and become non believers.

We all believe that Hinduism, unlike other religions, does not dogmatically assert that the final emancipation is possible only through its means. It should allow absolute freedom to the rational mind and it should never demand any undue restraints upon the freedom of human reason, thought, feeling and will. Hinduism has always allowed us the widest freedom in matters of faith and worship.

However, nowadays we notice that as an individual we Sanatanis or Hindus have very little say if any in the performance of our religious prayers that we ask our priests to conduct for us at our homes. The priests go on and on with their same routine and give us the religious jargon in a language that our new generation are not able to comprehend and find it boring. We are at the mercy of these priests to obey the obsolete and archaic practices and laws. If we want any changes to suit our time and clime they refuse to conduct the prayers for us and ask us to seek the services of a priest from a different sect of Hinduism.

Where has that allowance of absolute freedom to the human reason gone for Hinduism?  I am told that Hinduism does not lie in the acceptance of any particular doctrine, or in the observance of some particular rituals or forms of worship. It should not force anybody to accept particular dogmas or forms of worship. It should allow everybody to reflect, investigate, enquire and cogitate. I am happy that the Arya Samajists have progressed with the needed reforms in Hinduism. They are doing well and educating people to believe in the principles of truth, beauty and goodness.

Of course, Hinduism does not condemn anyone or any religion. Even the unbelievers should be recognised as pious and honourable members of the society as long as they are good human beings. This is why Hinduism is proverbial, is extremely catholic and liberal. Despite all the differences of prevalent metaphysical doctrines, modes of religious discipline and forms of ritualistic practices and social habits, there should be an essential uniformity in the conception of religion and in the outlook on life. This is my reason to look for some changes.

It is good to notice that in some places in the world like the West & East Indies, Trinidad and Mauritius a lot of aspects of Hinduism have been modernised and the people have absolute freedom to practice Hinduism as they feel and like. The people there believe that Hinduism is a synthesis of all types of religious experiences. It is a whole and complete view of life. It is free from fanaticism and that is the reason is has its survival there.

If truth, beauty and goodness are the cornerstones of Hinduism then it is time now to become more elastic and tolerant to the new changes that are inevitable. We need to be more elastic in readjusting to the externals and non-essentials and then we would succeed in keeping our new generation intact and to be followers of new form of Hinduism.

Some priests I have spoken to agree that some changes are definitely needed in our obsolete practices and there are others who are prepared to conduct prayers for us in our homes and in public places as we would like them to do. But there are many around us who are still stuck in the past and any changes in the principles and practices of Hinduism for them are impossible and cannot be accepted.

We modern Hindus need the emergence of a courageous and determined new and reformed sage or lawgiver like Manu to give us new meaning to our old Universal Hindu Religion.

Alternatively we can follow our instinct and reform to make our own home and family a place of worship and religious practices without any interference from anyone.

 One last thing to remember is that our voice for a change is more than what we have heard and a lot greater than whatever we have experienced. Our revelations and traditions are books written by sages but they cannot constitute the final authority because they were heard from someone’s experiences and were left as a record for the benefit of posterity.

What the sages heard and what they experienced and then what they wrote could vary from the original form of religious law. This is because the ones who heard and the ones who experienced the laws of religion were different from the ones who acted as scribes. So some items may have been either forgotten or left out from the original in the process of recording and writing. Therefore we have more reasons to say that the time has come for a change, a modification that will be useful to all Hindus.

I know that many Hindus of old and orthodoxical views will not like my contentions because it affects their own performance and beliefs. The pundits who perform the ceremonies following the older styles and traditions will criticize my thoughts because they know sooner or later their income will be depleated. I am told that many of the Hindu priest nowadays charge exorbitant amount of money to perform ceremonies. This has never been the call of the brahamans before.