A death in 2017 reminded me of my mother

Jan 07, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

On June 10, 2015, a man by the name of Baytoram Ramharack published a letter on me in the Stabroek News. I quote the relevant section; “I am would not venture so far as to convene on Kissoon the label of self-hating Indian as some have done, but I am more inclined to believe that perhaps Kissoon lacks an understanding of a rich cultural tradition or that he may have rejected an important element of himself that defines his cultural background.”
People like this man and Ravi Dev have peddled that kind of propaganda against me, all because I have criticized an Indian Government for mistreating other ethnic groups in my country (not their country, since both Dev and Ramharack have American citizenship) and because I have shown impatience with the Indian supporters of the PPP, a party that ruled my country in destructive ways.
You do not have to study carefully what Ramharack wrote about me. His point is simple – I have had little Indian culture in me, or I did, but I rejected essential input into my cultural evolution as an East Indian.
Ramharack is speaking about a man who married an Indian woman and has a child whose first name is a Hindu one.
The laughable thing about Ramharack and Dev is that they lived the greater part of their lives in a country where East Indians are not even one percent of the population, but I have lived all my life in a country where Indians are half of the population and equally share the contents of Guyana as any other racial group.
I have refused to describe my cultural background to people like Ramharack and Dev, because I thought it was degrading of me to do so for two men whom I consider racially tribalist and racially ignorant.
Why dignify their abysmal ignorance of how I grew up as an Indian person. This column here grew out of sadness I felt on hearing about the death of a great film star as 2017 was about to end. It is a death that reminds me so much of my mother and my Indian background that Ramharack and Dev are ignorant of.
Shashi Kapoor was one of my favourite artists of all times. He was my mother’s favourite Hindu actor. All my brothers and sisters grew up in a Hindu home. My father played tassa drum at Hindu weddings.
My mother was an extreme Hindu devotee. She had a little temple in the home. She prayed to her Hindu gods every morning. My mom had her altar from the time she married at eighteen until she died at 70.
It was impossible not to be influenced by my mom’s culture and religion. We went to see Hindi films every week. It was there I came to like Shashi more than the other great Hindi actors.
Because of my mother’s religion, I became close to a Swami and actually spent an inordinate amount of time at his ashram on Craig Street, Campbellville, with Guyana first unofficial African pandit, Ronald Gordon. Gordon and the father of prominent political activist, Gerhard Ramsaroop and I, never missed a Diwali fair at Gandhi Youth Organization ground on Woolford Avenue.
In my first year as a UG student, I went to Gandhi Youth Organization to participate in chowtal singing in preparation for the coming of Phagwah.
I was taken there by a fellow UG student who is the brother-in-law of insurance magnate and cousin of Khemraj Ramjattan, Bish Panday. Chowtal singing is pure fun.
Gordon later moved on to Islam and became the right hand person to Muslim priest, Alim Shah, father of well-known Indian rights activist, Ryhaan Shah. Mr. Shah remains to this day the official moulvi of the mosque on Winter Place, opposite the head office of the NIS, a mosque whose construction my in-laws contributed financially to.
I doubt whether there is any Indian pandit in Guyana that knows the ancient Hindu texts as this African Guyanese. He went from Hindu pandit to Muslim priest and then back to civilian life. Quite a journey!
If anything brought back memories of my mother and her religion and my sojourn into Hindu films, songs and culture, it was on reading of the death of Shashi Kapoor. I grew older and moved away from all types of religions and cultures.
I don’t know what I am today, but Dev and Ramharack and others of their ilk know more about me than I know of myself. They describe me as a self-hating Indian. I do not hate any race group or person. But I do hate bigoted racists. Everyone should.

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A death in 2017 reminded me of my mother

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