An immigrant’s story

“Everyone was poor so we did not even know we were poor. Everyone helped each other. The whole logee was like one family back in the compound in India.

What kept us going was that we believed if we worked hard and saved, we could send our children to school and they would not have to work in the backdam”

By Anu Dev

As we celebrate Indian Arrival Day, it is always a bittersweet time for me. I enjoy the tribute we pay to our ancestors, but there is always a personal, moving twist to my memories on this day. Because, you see, ‘arrival’ is not just something from a book. My beloved nani had been one of those “arrivals”. As a little girl, I’d listen to her story – her ‘kahaani’ – on so many rainy days that when I close my eyes, the memories just come like a flood… khayaal aata hai. This is her story – but in my words. She used to speak in broken English, with many more Hindustani words.

Village life

“I was born in the village of Ishmailpur in the district of Gaya in Bihar. Of course, I didn’t know this at the time. I just knew that I was a very troublesome child growing up among my cousins behind the mud walls of our compound. We were Kurmis, so my father and his brothers would go off to work in the vegetable fields while my mother and the other bahus (daughters-in-law) would pound the grains in the mortar to take off the husks and then cook for the men before they came home.

Her mother-in-law, my ajee, kept a close eye on the bahus to make sure they didn’t giggle too much.

In the front of the compound was the enclosure for the cows, and sometimes we would play with the calves.

Milk was plentiful. My father, who was the youngest brother, unfortunately took ill and passed away when I was about five. I can just remember him mussing the top of my head when he returned from the fields.

Things changed drastically once he was cremated. My mother became like a servant to everyone in the compound. My cousins treated me differently. One night my mother woke me from my sleep and shushed me. We crept outside the compound, taking care not to disturb the cows.

My mother had a small bundle with our clothes. We went through some fields to the main road and we walked all night. Finally, we came to a large town. This was Gaya and it was very busy. I had never seen so many people in one place before. My mother seemed to know where she was going.

She later told me that she and my father had come to Gaya for the Ram Lila and she had been approached by an arkati (recruiter) to go to a far-away place where they would just chaanay (sift) gold from sugar and become rich. She didn’t believe it but at least it was a place where she would be free. The arkati bundled us with about ten other adults onto a train that very afternoon and the next morning we were at Barrakpore. There they took our names and examined us, made us bathe, and gave us some strange new clothes.

We were taken to a large building some distance away where there were hundreds of persons of all ages – including many children.

It was called a depot . I saw my first “white people”. We were told that some of the people had been there for months awaiting the passing of the monsoon season.

It was all an adventure for me. My mother had to help with the cooking, and everyone ate from the same pot. Some people had gotten married to each other in the depot.

The Journey

We were lucky. Within a week, we were taken by a small boat to a large ship with sails, in the middle of the river. The name of the ship was the Allanshaw and I now know it was August 25, 1890. They told us we were going to Damru Tapu (Demerara Island). We were all allowed on deck as the ship sailed from the port of Calcutta, but very soon, the dark waters (kala paani) got rough and we were taken below decks. There we would sleep on the floors, with the unmarried women in front, the married couples in the middle and the unmarried men at the back.

Every morning we would be taken on deck and have two meals – one at about 10 am and the other about 4 pm. The food was mostly rice and dhall, but with the movement of the ship, it was hard to keep it in. In the next month and a half, there were many times when I thought we would die, and in fact, several persons did die. They were thrown overboard.

Three babies were born during the journey and several couples became married. Everyone became very close and called themselves jahajees (shipmates)

Demerara

Finally, we saw a tall thin “stick-like building” ahead and we were told this was the ‘lighthouse’ at Damru . The journey was over. Everyone prayed and laughed. We had survived.

We were taken to another depot in the town of Georgetown, which was not as large or as busy as Calcutta. There were some white men there but also some very dark men with curly hair called Negroes.

The next day we were taken across a river to the sugar plantation De Willem. My mother and I were given one room in a logee having 10 rooms side by side.

We were given some clothes, foodstuff and some pots. My mother would have to pay for them from her wages later. We slept on the floor. The next morning a white overseer came at five am and made sure everyone went with their gang to work in the fields.

My mother was given a cutlass and placed in the weeding gang with other women, and I was sent with other children in the creole gang. I was given a bucket with which I had to carry manure from a punt in the canal to place on the cane roots. I was six years old. I was told that I should have gone to school but no one told us anything.

Almost no parents though, sent their sons to schools, much less their daughters.

This was my life in De Willem. I worked from morning to night, and most nights would sleep without any clothes because my one and only dress was wet. I earned one shilling for my week’s work. My mother married within a few months to the man who now became my father. He had been born in Guiana and was a canecutter like all the men in the logees .

He was not unkind, but every Saturday night he would drink rum at the Chinese rum shop opposite the pay office. We did not work on Sunday, and some of us would go to the small mandir near the canal in the afternoon. The pandit and old men would sing from the Ramayan, and we would sing bhajans.

In those days, we remembered the songs for every occasion, and especially weddings and mundans (shaving the baby’s head) were celebrated very heartily.

My mother started to get a baby every year but the first two died young.

Eventually I would have four brothers. When I was eight, I was married to your nana from the next village of Uitvlugt. He was twelve and it was a night wedding. The matter had been arranged by my mother and his in the backdam. She was also a weeder. We saw each other for the first time under the maaro.

Married life

I stayed at my parents, however, until I was thirteen.

I used to see your nana sometimes at the backdam.

Our friends would tease us, but we were both too shy to talk to each other. When I went to live at the Uitvlugt, he took me by the train, which was a big thing. The railway had just been built at West Coast. We lived with his parents who had two rooms at “Five Bed” in the Uitvlugt logees.

Life was not very different from De Willem. The two estates have become joined together and I still went to work – but now as a weeder.

I got my first baby – your mother when I was fifteen, and in the end, as you know I had six children that lived; four died. In those days, we drank water from the trench behind the logees, and suffered many diseases.

Uitvlugt was a bigger estate than De Willem – there were six different sections. Life was very hard and we had to grow up very fast. But we were happy.

Everyone was poor so we did not even know we were poor. Everyone helped each other. The whole logee was like one family back in the compound in India.

What kept us going was that we believed if we worked hard and saved, we could send our children to school and they would not have to work in the backdam.”