Sat­narayan Ma­haraj

Part 3

In­di­an Ar­rival Day can­not be con­sid­ered in iso­la­tion or ex­clud­ing our ex­pe­ri­ences over the en­tire pe­ri­od 1845-2015. These ex­pe­ri­ences, by dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions, have con­tributed to the present state of the Hin­du and East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty.Our an­ces­tors, with lim­it­ed ma­te­r­i­al and re­sources, start­ed the road map of Dhar­ma by the erec­tion of sim­ple "ku­tiyas" as places of wor­ship in the first few decades of in­den­ture­ship.

To the Hin­du mind, sep­a­ra­tion from God is in­con­ceiv­able. These rudi­men­ta­ry struc­tures en­abled them to en­gage in prayer, in a man­ner that was unique to this part of the world.Carv­ing mur­tis, re­li­gious im­ages from wood or stone, was known to them and this im­print on the Trinidad land­scape sig­nalled a per­ma­nent pres­ence and con­nec­tion with this land. The Hin­du mind thrives on the es­tab­lish­ment of places of wor­ship, pos­si­bly more than any oth­er re­li­gious group.

Hin­duism has a his­to­ry in con­struct­ing the most or­nate, ex­quis­ite and mon­u­men­tal­ly grand tem­ples for God. In­dia and the rest of the Hin­du world are re­plete with mag­nif­i­cent mandirs to demon­strate the grandeur of our re­li­gion.In re­cent years, cities in the West like Lon­don, Toron­to, New York and oth­er US cities have ben­e­fit­ted from the erec­tion of these unique Hin­du struc­tures.

Our an­ces­tors made sure that they not on­ly brought and es­tab­lished this mandir/tem­ple build­ing tra­di­tion, but al­so en­sured ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tiv­i­ties were con­duct­ed in these mandirs.It is a trib­ute to them that over this pe­ri­od of 170 years, Hin­dus have main­tained this tra­di­tion of pro­vid­ing some of the finest re­li­gious ed­i­fices which al­low com­mu­nion with God in the di­verse ways in which we prac­tice our re­li­gion.

To­day, Hin­dus across the land are able to con­struct tem­ples with ab­solute free­dom and with­out any form of sanc­tion. How­ev­er, we need to re­mind our­selves that this was not al­ways so.The tem­ple in the sea at Wa­ter­loo is a tes­ta­ment to the ded­i­ca­tion of a sim­ple Hin­du, Siew­dass Sad­hu. His dy­ing am­bi­tion was to erect a place to wor­ship the Hin­du Gods that was for­bid­den by the sug­ar es­tate ad­min­is­tra­tors.

In the ear­ly years and in a for­eign land, it would have re­quired great for­ti­tude, de­ter­mi­na­tion and strength of char­ac­ter to con­struct mandirs which were not con­sis­tent with the views, be­liefs and con­vic­tions of the ex­ist­ing ruler­ship. The jhan­dis (re­li­gious prayer flags) which dot the land­scape are now ac­cept­ed as the Hin­du way of wor­ship.

With hun­dreds of mandirs in every ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion in Trinidad, it would be easy to for­get the strug­gles that took us to the present point in our his­to­ry.Our an­ces­tors, in the ear­ly years, al­so un­der­stood the val­ue of com­mu­ni­ty. In a strange land, there was a tremen­dous need to keep the com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er.

Re­li­gious oc­ca­sions pro­vid­ed the per­fect tem­plate for this to­geth­er­ness.In ad­di­tion to prayer, the mandirs would have en­abled the com­mu­ni­ty to seek so­lace in times of dis­tress.They al­so pro­vid­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for a so­cial in­ter­ac­tion, in­clud­ing mar­riages. All of these strug­gles are sig­nif­i­cant and must be re­mem­bered each time In­di­an Ar­rival Day ap­proach­es.

We have cre­at­ed a mean­ing­ful ex­is­tence for our­selves and our chil­dren on the foun­da­tion of sac­ri­fices of our pre­de­ces­sors.The mandir was, there­fore, one of the main in­sti­tu­tions cre­at­ed by our an­ces­tors for long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty in this part of the world. The mandir was a place for wor­ship, lan­guage res­onation, so­cial in­ter­ac­tion and com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er­ness.

The morals and val­ues of our an­ces­tors would have been tram­pled up­on and erad­i­cat­ed were it not for their for­ti­tude. When we sit to­day in huge air con­di­tioned mandirs with many fa­cil­i­ties and ameni­ties, we must spare a thought for those who strug­gled to take us to this point in our his­to­ry. Our an­ces­tors al­so taught us an affin­i­ty and con­nec­tion with the earth, our Moth­er per­son­i­fied.

Many of the sa­cred trees and plants which are used in our re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties and ob­ser­vances were brought by our an­ces­tors to this land. The Hin­du mind has an ex­tra­or­di­nary ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the earth which sus­tains us in di­verse ways. Hin­du ecol­o­gy and thought are key facts of our dai­ly ex­is­tence.

The Hin­du of­fers a prayer to 'Dhar­ti Ma­ta' (Moth­er Earth) every morn­ing up­on awak­en­ing and be­fore al­low­ing the feet to touch the ground. The Hin­du mind is unique­ly aware of the cen­tral place of the en­vi­ron­ment in our lives and the di­vine rev­er­ence, re­spect and love we must demon­strate to 'Dhar­ti Ma­ta.'

In­di­an Ar­rival Day is not sim­ply a cel­e­bra­tion of the mo­ment In­di­ans stepped off the SS Fa­tel Raza­ck, but rather the cel­e­bra­tion of a peo­ple who turned–are still now turn­ing–a sto­ry of their op­pres­sion in­to a sto­ry of tri­umph. Every time we achieve some­thing new, we are es­sen­tial­ly 'ar­riv­ing.'

We ar­rived when Bhadase Sagan Maraj built the first Ma­ha Sab­ha school. We ar­rived when VS Naipaul won the No­bel Prize for Lit­er­a­ture. We ar­rived when Bas­deo Pan­day be­came the first In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter. We ar­rived when Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was elect­ed the first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter. We ar­rived when we pro­gressed one step fur­ther than our par­ents did and we are ar­riv­ing even now.