Death of an Indian family should civilize Guyanese

Jan 19, 2023 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Canadian police found the Patel family of four – husband, Jagdish 39; wife Vaishaliben; 37; daughter, Vihangi,11 and son, Dharmik, 3 – huddled together, frozen, in an empty field on 19 January in Manitoba in Canada.

They died literally yards away from the US border which was their destination. We here in Guyana who have never travelled to Alaska, Russia, Scandinavia and Canada do not have an imagination of what a cold climate is.

This country can have non-stop rain for an entire day, with high winds and a cold temperature but yet on that very day, if you go on the Eve Leary beach, you will see lots of folks dressed in tropical wear. You will see people with T-shirts and short-trousers.

The scientific fact about Guyana is that given where geography placed it, the country may never have weather at 20 degrees Celsius (C); we are always in the day time between 27 and 31 degrees Celsius. On a cold day, we may drop between 25°C and 26°C. I live alongside the Atlantic where on a rainy, cold night we may descend to 24°C. My bedroom faces the Atlantic yet when it is 24°C, I go to bed with a T-shirt. Our weather in Georgetown does not necessitate bulky clothes even on a cold day.

Now imagine what 35 degrees Celsius below freezing is. That was the kind of weather the Patel family walked in and in deep snow. I always tell people when we talk about Canada being cold…about a horrible experience my wife and I had in Canada. It was Old Year’s Night and we were going from downtown Toronto to North York to visit my wife’s brother. In the subway, we were freezing. It was below 40 degrees Celsius below freezing. Even in the train, there was no relief. We came off and caught another train heading back to Toronto.

The Patel family contacted backtrack con artists in Gujarat to take them through Canada to the US. They perished in what the BBC wrote was “a world away from home.” The cruel death of the Patel family made headlines across the globe. I looked at the family photograph and tears came to my eyes.

I hate, and I repeat, hate any Guyanese that does not want refugees to come to this country. I find any Guyanese that says too many foreigners coming to Guyana and Guyana must stop them as despicable humans.

I grew up in dirt poverty in Wortmanville. I went hungry many days. You try to kill the pangs of hunger by raiding the fruits trees in the neighbourhood. I know what it is to want to live beyond existence. I know what it is to dream of a better life. Deep down in my psyche, there is no other human I can easily identify with than a refugee.

It is thus a horrible human that would refuse people coming to Guyana for a better life. The Patel family left Gujarat because they wanted to provide for those two children. I know what it is to want to give a child a lovely, enjoyable life. My child was once 11 years like the 11-year-old Patel daughter.

I wanted to give her the world. I remembered there were a Pocahontas cup, plate and towel that my small daughter wanted because she saw it on television. I looked at every conceivable place in Georgetown to find those things.

I kept asking parents at school if they knew where to find it. I located it in a place where no human in Guyana would have looked at – the gift shop in the Medical Arts Centre Hospital on Thomas Street.

I don’t know if that shop still exists because that was a long time ago. You may now find the line below an exaggeration but I swear it is not. The Patel 11-year-old girl that perished looked just like my daughter when she was at that age.

Last week in the US, a man was charged with beheading his wife. She was illegal in the US. She traveled from Nicaragua to US for a better life. She married a drug addict so she can be legal in the US. The dream died in a pool of blood.

To think that Guyanese (my God, Guyanese of all people!) could want to deny people from coming to this country for a better life is beyond words. This nationality that goes by the name of Guyanese is an unfit species. Marx is dead. Gandhi is dead. Martin Luther King is dead, Mandela is dead. Gorbachev is dead. And I am not feeling too well myself.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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Alaska, BBC, Freddie Kissoon, Russia, Scandinavia, Wortmanville

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