Michelle Loubon

Plucked from In­dia on the Asian con­ti­nent, fore­fa­thers of for­mer prime min­is­ter, Bas­deo Pan­day and T&T's first la­dy Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bissses­sar jour­neyed to T&T-an ex­ot­ic is­land in the Caribbean. The jour­ney was ar­du­ous and they en­dured ter­ri­ble con­di­tions on wood­en ships like the Fa­tel Raza­ck. Their mis­sion was to turn the sug­ar cane plan­ta­tions in­to prof­itable en­ter­pris­es for the colo­nial­ists. Af­ter all, they turned to In­dia for a cheap sup­ply of labour af­ter the African en­slaved labour­ers were giv­en their lib­er­ty on Au­gust 1, 1834. In cel­e­bra­tion of their ar­rival, his­to­ri­ans Prof Brins­ley Sama­roo lec­tures on In­di­an Ar­rival, and Don­ald Wood de­votes sig­nif­i­cant chap­ters to their ex­pe­ri­ence in Trinidad In Tran­si­tion. Ca­lyp­son­ian Broth­er Mar­vin (Sel­wyn Dem­ming) sang Ja­ha­ji Bhai and priest/re­tired St Mary's Col­lege teacher Fr An­tho­ny de Ver­teuil felt com­pelled to write a di­dac­tic ac­count of the Eight East In­di­an Im­mi­grants who came to these shores. He high­light­ed the au­dac­i­ty and en­tre­pre­neur­ship of Gokool (Cin­e­ma mag­nate and mosque builder), Sookoo (renowned Pres­by­ter­ian el­der) and Bec­ca­ni (Es­tate own­er and wife of a French Cre­ole).

Oth­er Valia­ma (Tamil ma­tri­arch, moth­er-in-law of the Pil­lais), Sood­een (renowned Pres­by­ter­ian el­der) Capildeo (Ch­agua­nas pun­dit), Ruk­nad­deen (Leader of the Mus­lims of Trinidad) and Bun­see (Founder of the Par­tap for­tune). They were ex­tra­or­di­nary-in that they could claim brag­ging rights as the eight first gen­er­a­tion East In­di­an im­mi­grants to Trinidad. As the tale un­folds, it tells about their re­cruit­ment, voy­age and in­te­gra­tion af­ter the pe­ri­od of in­den­ture­ship. Like prac­ti­cal­ly all the East In­di­an im­mi­grants, they had no "sur­name" (fam­i­ly name). In its pref­ace, De Ver­teuil said: "In In­dia, mon­ey was a prob­lem, and so they all came pen­ni­less to Trinidad and found their for­tunes. But in many ways these im­mi­grants dif­fered from one an­oth­er: Gokool, a Mus­lim, won his wealth through the cin­e­ma; Bun­see Par­tap's land float­ed on oil; Capildeo was a Hin­du pun­dit; Sood­een a Pres­by­ter­ian cathe­cist." De Ver­teuil added: "I hope the read­ers would ac­quire a sense of the rich cul­tur­al her­itage that is ours in Trinidad, and a great un­der­stand­ing of their fel­low Trinida­di­ans." The book is dot­ted with maps of In­dia and black and white pho­tographs of tad­jahs, and Ha­ji Ruk­nad­deen, who lived to be 98.

About Bec­ca­ni

An ex­cerpt said: "She was born in 1869, in the vil­lage of Chancedee, Province of Bus­tee (Basti), State of Ut­tar Pradesh in the Cen­tral Ganges Plain. Bec­ca­ni is re­put­ed­ly a Ra­jput name, but she is list­ed as be­long­ing to the caste of leather work­ers, the chamars, con­sid­ered the low­est of the su­dra (ser­vant) castes, since their pro­fes­sion was to mu­ti­late the hide of the sa­cred cow. Reg­is­tered as Bheeknee at the de­pot of Cal­cut­ta, she left In­dia with her moth­er Teel­i­ah, aged 24, her fa­ther Churn, al­so in his twen­ties and her in­fant broth­er, Baluck."

About Bun­see

An ex­cerpt said: "Bun­see in­dulged in di­rect mon­ey lend­ing. The cur­rent rates of usury around 1890 were 10 per cent for a month or 120 per cent per an­num where the se­cu­ri­ty was faulty. Through his ruth­less­ness in busi­ness, he had be­come a suc­cess­ful cap­i­tal­ist, for in ad­di­tion to his shops he had de­vel­oped a num­ber of co­coa es­tates. In 1914, the be­gin­ning of the First World War, both Bun­see and his wife Lack­pa­tia, were over 70 years of age and still vig­or­ous. He was known to the vil­lagers of Orop­uche as-"Ma­ha­too"-the great one."

• Eight East In­di­an Im­mi­grants was first pub­lished in 1989, pri­or to the 150th an­niver­sary of East In­di­an ar­rival. In­ter­est­ed peo­ple can con­tact An­tho­ny De Ver­teuil at 464-0476 or Norine Bazie at 623-4523.