Ut­tar Pradesh, In­dia, Jan­u­ary 1, 1901. The cries of a new­born ba­by boy rang out from a mod­est house on that win­ter’s day.

The ba­by boy, born to a hum­ble fam­i­ly, will trav­el with his par­ents, Boodram and Bis­soon­dayia Sew­dass, to T&T in the Caribbean, and in time, will per­form an as­ton­ish­ing mirac­u­lous feat.

That mir­a­cle will be to re­claim land from the sea in cen­tral Trinidad at Wa­ter­loo. A pas­sion that will take him on a 17-year odyssey, tam­ing the waves of the Caribbean Sea to even­tu­al­ly build his tem­ple in that ocean.

Young Sew­dass was born to an In­dia that was in­vad­ed, con­quered and con­trolled by the British from 1608 to 1947. It was 339 bru­tal years of op­pres­sion and sup­pres­sion.

That great cru­sad­er Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi, the hero of In­dia’s in­de­pen­dence, had peace­ful­ly ag­i­tat­ed the British for sev­er­al decades to ut­ter frus­tra­tion. They even­tu­al­ly sur­ren­dered and left In­dia. Freed from British rule, In­dia de­clared it­self in­de­pen­dent in 1947.

How­ev­er, in 1907 when In­dia was still un­der British rule, Sew­dass was just six years old. His fam­i­ly and thou­sands of oth­er In­di­ans were en­cour­aged to leave In­dia by the British au­thor­i­ty. They promised them a much bet­ter life else­where in one of their oth­er colonies.

Re­ports of the day stat­ed that parts of In­dia were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ex­treme drought and suf­fer­ing was like a plague. It was easy for the British to take ad­van­tage of this sit­u­a­tion and it was easy to get peo­ple to leave In­dia seek­ing a bet­ter life. Un­cer­tain of their fu­ture, but hope and faith in their hearts, Boodram and Bis­soon­dayia re­spond­ed to the promise of a bet­ter ex­is­tence.

They packed what they could to bring with them on their jour­ney. They bade tear­ful good­byes to their rel­a­tives and trav­elled from their vil­lage by horse-dri­ven tram with their three sons and board­ed a steam­train trav­el­ling some 423 miles (some 681 km) to the port of Kolkata then called (Cul­cut­ta).

In the sum­mer, on June 4, 1907, his fam­i­ly–com­pris­ing him­self, his two broth­ers and his par­ents–board­ed the (steamship) SS Mut­lah bound for their new home in T&T.

The ship left the port of Kolka­ka (Cul­cut­ta) and jour­neyed through the In­di­an Ocean, the Cape of Good Hope, pass­ing the re­mote British Port of St He­le­na through the At­lantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and T&T.

Young Sew­dass would have to be strong to en­dure the three months of tor­tur­ous sail­ing, through dan­ger­ous rough seas, sick­ness, storms and blaz­ing heat. He would have to even wit­ness death, as 11 pas­sen­gers from a to­tal of 844 aboard the SS Mut­lah suc­cumbed to the jour­ney and had to be thrown over­board.

He must have felt that he and his fam­i­ly would al­so be­come vic­tims of the cru­el seas when pass­ing through the Cape of Good Hope on the South African coast­line known for its un­for­giv­ing cur­rents and mighty waves which they ex­pe­ri­enced.

The jour­ney took be­tween ten and 16 weeks, de­pend­ing on weath­er con­di­tions. Life on the steamship was sim­i­lar to those on slave ships. The death rate for In­di­ans trav­el­ling to the Caribbean was high due to dis­eases like dysen­tery, cholera and measles.

Stead­fast in prayer

Though they were hang­ing on to the thin threads of life in the cramped, in­hu­mane hull of the ship young Sew­dass no­ticed some­thing quite re­mark­able. He no­ticed his par­ents re­mained stead­fast in pray and wor­ship, and he and his broth­ers were en­cour­aged to do the same–a lev­el of spir­i­tu­al de­vo­tion which served him well in the fu­ture.

Sew­dass's deep spir­i­tu­al back­ground and his ex­pe­ri­ences aboard the SS Mut­lah cer­tain­ly would have shaped his coura­geous mind, strength­ened his char­ac­ter and his will each day, as the SS Mut­lah cut through strong chop­py seas and did a bal­anc­ing act as it rolled back and forth on the threat­en­ing waves as it sailed on­ward to T&T.

Sep­tem­ber 4, 1907, the SS Mut­lah ar­rived in T&T, its pas­sen­gers clear­ly show­ing signs of ex­treme ex­haus­tion from their jour­ney as they dis­em­barked at Nel­son Is­land. The pas­sen­gers were sub­ject­ed to a rig­or­ous in­spec­tion car­ried out by im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials un­der The Pro­tec­tor of Im­mi­grants. They were fu­mi­gat­ed with DDT, in­clud­ing their clothes, their be­long­ings, as well as their ship.

Af­ter they dis­em­barked, deaths con­tin­ued. Poor­ly fed and weak, they con­tin­ued to die in the hold­ing bays and dur­ing the process of ac­cli­ma­ti­sa­tion.

They were housed tem­porar­i­ly on Nel­son Is­land un­til they were strong enough to be brought to the main­land. The im­mi­grants were soon called by name, num­bered, giv­en a five-year con­tract to sign and as­signed to vil­lages.

Sew­dass's fam­i­ly was sent to the vil­lage of Bar­ran­core, known to­day as Brick­field, the place where he would make his­to­ry as he made a ma­jor con­tri­bu­tion to T&T’s tourism de­vel­op­ment.

Bar­ran­core (Brick­field) Trinidad in 1907 was a sea­side vil­lage strewn with bar­rack-style ex­is­tence with thatch-roof struc­tures. The vil­lage was al­so in­hab­it­ed by African peo­ple who were freed slaves from the eman­ci­pa­tion of 1834.

Labour­ing in the field

The British au­thor­i­ties did not ex­clude chil­dren from labour, so young Sew­dass and his broth­ers had to work along­side their par­ents, though they were on­ly still un­der ten years of age. Sew­dass was just six.

I was very for­tu­nate to meet Sew­dass's good friend, Chun­nelal. At over one hun­dred years of age, he still re­mem­bered quite a bit of his­to­ry. "He said "the work was ex­treme­ly hard and the hours were very long. The con­di­tions were ter­ri­ble, but what could you do?

"We had to work ac­cord­ing to what we were told. Be­ing young peo­ple didn’t mat­ter to them.

"We worked for around 20 cents per day. And if we were made to work ex­tra hours, we were not com­pen­sat­ed at all."

Twen­ty cents per day? How did Sew­dass's par­ents save from such mea­gre wages to pur­chase tick­ets for them­selves and their three boys to re­turn to In­dia af­ter their five-year con­tract was up?

Trinidad 1912–the hor­rif­ic five-year con­tract had come to an end for Boodram and Bis­soon­dayia and they would re­turn to In­dia with their three boys. Sew­dass was now 11 years of age.

In 1920 Sew­dass re­turned to Trinidad with his broth­ers af­ter hav­ing spent eight years in In­dia. Sew­dass was now 19. His par­ents did not re­turn.

He lived and worked in the sug­ar es­tate in Brick­field in Wa­ter­loo.

The colo­nial pow­er that was Great Britain had in­den­tured labour­ers in many parts of the world and they were treat­ed more like ob­jects than hu­man be­ings.

Hausil­dar, an ex-in­den­tured labour­er in Fi­ji said, "We were whipped for small mis­takes. If you woke up late, lat­er than 3 am, you got whipped.

"No mat­ter what hap­pened, whether there was rain or thun­der, you had to work–we were here to work and work we had to do, oth­er­wise we were abused and beat­en up."

In no man's land

Sew­dass, be­ing fru­gal, re­turned to In­dia in 1920, 1942, 1946, 1963 and 1970. On his trip back to In­dia in 1942 Sew­dass al­most lost his life when bad weath­er threat­ened to cap­size the boat. Strong sus­tained howl­ing winds and mas­sive waves tossed the boat around. His prays and faith kept him hop­ing for life.

When he ar­rived in In­dia, he con­fessed to a pun­dit that he was scared. This was the meet­ing that would turn Sew­dass in­to the leg­endary fig­ure that he has be­come to­day.

The pun­dit told him that Lord Kr­ish­na had saved his life, and that he need­ed to build a tem­ple to ho­n­our him on his re­turn to Trinidad.

In 1942 Sew­dass, at age 22, utilised land owned by the British Sug­ar Com­pa­ny Tate and Lyle to build the tem­ple.

The land was slight­ly bet­ter than man­grove and swamp. But he cleared it and start­ed the place of wor­ship.

Nar­ine, Sew­dass's son said, "Back then there were maybe three or four tem­ples in the coun­try. My fa­ther’s tem­ple was one of them. Peo­ple came from afar to use it and sat­is­fy their re­li­gious hunger."

Sew­dass by this time had al­ready demon­strat­ed his in­cred­i­ble mul­ti-faceted skills. He had built a home for his fam­i­ly, which still stands to­day. In the down­stairs of that house, he es­tab­lished a shop. He had thou­sands of cus­tomers. His record books showed a man who paid ex­treme at­ten­tion to de­tail. The books, though frag­ile, show his record-keep­ing was im­pec­ca­ble. The leg­i­bil­i­ty of his hand­writ­ing was as­ton­ish­ing. Giv­en the fact that he had no for­mal school­ing in busi­ness and ar­chi­tec­ture, the skills he dis­played at this stage of his life was per­plex­ing.

He was al­so gain­ing a rep­u­ta­tion of be­ing a Holy man in the vil­lage and was giv­en the name Sad­hu, as many peo­ple turned to him for ad­vice, guid­ance and hope.

Af­ter five years of be­ing used as a place of pray and wor­ship for many, The Tate and Lyle Sug­ar Com­pa­ny in­struct­ed Sew­dass to de­mol­ish his tem­ple. Sew­dass blunt­ly re­fused to de­stroy the tem­ple that he be­lieved was com­mand­ed by Lord Kr­ish­na to be built. He was ar­rest­ed, charged for re­fus­ing to car­ry out a court or­der, fined 100 pounds and im­pris­oned for 14 days.

While in prison, the Tate and Lyle Com­pa­ny used a trac­tor and de­mol­ished Sew­dass's tem­ple. His friend Chun­nelal said, "I went with my bull cart and picked up all the rub­ble. I was sad to see my friend's tem­ple de­stroyed. It was a tem­ple that was used by many of us."

One can on­ly imag­ine the tremen­dous hard­ships peo­ple faced in this coun­try in 1947 un­der the might of the British. Al­so, the Sec­ond World War had end­ed just two years pre­vi­ous­ly and food ra­tioning con­tin­ued. In­den­ture­ship was still ripe in the minds of the In­di­an peo­ple and the freed African slaves were still try­ing to find their lost iden­ti­ty, lan­guage and pur­pose.

It was against this back­ground in 1947 that Sew­dass was freed from prison af­ter 14 days of in­car­cer­a­tion. He gazed up­on the spot which housed his tem­ple. He saw on­ly space. His friend Chun­nelal was there to greet and con­sole him.

Anger, rage and sor­row en­veloped every one of Sew­dass's cells.

Chun­nelal said he ut­tered the words, " 'They do not want me to build my tem­ple on land, so now I will build it in the ocean, in no man's land'."

With those words, Sew­dass be­gan the 17-year odyssey that led him to con­quer the Caribbean Sea, change the land­scape of Cen­tral at Wa­ter­loo and leave a lega­cy that has be­come a ma­jor tourist at­trac­tion for T&T.

Con­tin­u­ing next week