Indian Arrival Day

May 13, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- Last Monday, Arrival Day was hailed and heralded.  I think that somebody forgot a word.  Indian.  The hope is that it wasn’t deliberate, or a matter of cowardice.  Ajee will be unhappy, and so also Nana.  I am not talking about Nana Mouskouri from Athens, Greece, but Nana, one of those Babus from Allahabad, India.  Ah, Mother India.  I remember grandmother (yes, it’s the anglicization that came).  Some may ask why am I a week late.  I am still in the arrival line, waiting to be accepted.  It is rough when one’s own changes complexion.  Remember Judas Iscariot.  He was from the Holy Bible, and has his equivalent in the Ramayana.  See! I have my sources, and none are more reliable, none that can compete.

Since Indian Arrival Day is enjoying a revival and renaissance, I might as well do the usual.  Follow the crowd.  Why not?  Indians arrived in the fields, made them better.  Some say that they should have stayed there.  Not just in Guyana, but in other parts of the world.  Indians arrived in economics.  Now, that took some doing, though I started with nothing tangible as personal evidence of my part of that arrival.  A cash infusion could make a difference, which brings me to politics.  Is this really necessary, since Indian Arrival Day is about beauty and the integrity of a people?  Well, what must be done, must be done.

Think of politics in the context of Indian Arrival Day, and there was the towering figure of Dr. Cheddi Bharat Jagan.  He was the one tower toppled, that somehow bounced back.  Just like the World Trade Center.  He had his foot soldiers, band of brothers: Ralph R, Clement R, Donald R, and Ranji.  Brindley too; intriguing how some sons are unlike their fathers.  Mine would have something to say about that, with a whole lotta shaking following.  From that pantheon of political stalwarts came a gang of scoundrels.  No names, not when honouring a people and their holiday are involved.  My people, and my brothers and sisters, with scoundrels, swindlers, impersonators, rogues, vagabonds, and brown sheep (the darkest brown) included in my fraternal order.  Nobaady gah baad bush fuh truh weh…  They don’t teach that in the universities, whether they are in Manhattan or Moscow, but when economics and politics are mixed, a toxic brew results.  One part of the bottle is intoxicating, the other can dispatch.  Think bush rum, first; then a bank.  Offshore, onshore, it doesn’t matter.  Now that is an Indian Arrival Day to envy.

In the field of education, have Indians arrived or have they arrived!  PhD and LLB, but many sans integrity.  Though the ethics classes were skipped, there are certain things that some leading Guyanese Indians can teach locals, the world, about the romance of finance.  They would make Lord Byron look like a crude amateur, return to poetry school.  Some world class Indians in high-altitude positions can compose a jingle that would make a dime ring and rhyme.  Richly.  Now, that’s arrival of a special kind.  At the front of the line, and at the heights.  I am still waiting in line, for name called, and my green card interview.  Green is good.  So is greed.  Proceed with caution! For that has its own people.  The record is there.  When some arrived at the ramparts, a new kind of education began in Guyana.  Bernie Madoff, Bobby Stanford and Charlie Ponzi were the founding fathers of that school, a heroic clan they made, with kinsmen in Guyana.  They look upon me as a stranger, even a tribal whistleblower. Like America, like Guyana: go back on the boat that brought here.  They call me the wandering Indian.  Though disowned, they can’t figure out how to deal with this renegade Indian.  There is an education, all of its own.

When the auspicious Indian Arrival Day dawned, crime departed.  White collar crime stayed put; grew from strength to strength, and to where it is.  There are the usual suspects, the few bad coconuts.  Bad coconuts drive to the fields of agriculture.  There was rice and sugar and spice.  The man who gave the world Easter is renowned for saying: ‘a good tree bears good fruit.’  I wished that he had stopped there, but he went on: ‘a bad tree produces bad fruit.’  I continue.  What is sown is reaped; if the wind, then the whirlwind.  Even the smoothest boat journey has its spots of turbulence.  Better make that choppiness since it is water and not air.  But can some leading lights split hairs with a shovel, rearrange reality with sledgehammer and wheelbarrow!  When Guyanese Indians look for role models (holy men), their choices are con men, dirty tricks men, and scamp men.

In summary: Indian Arrival Day has its glittering historical record.  Then, it has that dark side.  It is not in the past, it is today.

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

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