By Petamber Persaud
In order to get to his Ph. D. investiture ceremony, Churaumanie Bissundyal made an overland trip covering some 700 miles in 11 hours (first leg of a round trip made up of 1400 miles and 22 hours). The trip from New York to Ohio was made in a mini van driven in turns by friends. This is how he described that first leg of the trip which started on a Saturday morning at 1 a.m., ‘At night, sandwiched between opaque, lilac heavens and phosphorescent, galloping road signs, I fell into a reverie of our travelling in a celestial chariot to a pilgrimage where angels and deities have chosen to bestow benedictions upon humans achieving the best with humility, hard work, perseverance, pains, gratitude and excellence. In daylight, I felt the ecstasy of tunnels through mountains, sunshine washing rocky barrens, the golden hue of corn and wheat fields, and of brilliant, rich towns granting mercies to pastoral shanties shrouded by jungle or rocks’.
That journey started more than half a century ago in the ‘Cinderella County’ where he spent his formative days on Leguan, a green windswept island at the mouth of the Essequibo River, British Guiana. As in the story of Cinderella, Bissundyal went to the ball but couldn’t stay all night for the festivity. It’s the story of his life – so near yet so far away. On the day of his investiture, he declared, ‘I sat in stunned silence, waiting, torn in an ambivalence between weeping and laughing, aware that I was far away from everything yet so near. It occurred to me in floods and flashes that my anxieties of classrooms, introspection, books, seminars, peer days, research, essays, travelling, organization, and doctoral meetings were yielding for the first time to a rich savour of relief and serenity’.
After completing his formal education, Bissundyal was sent (city positions were reserved) to teach at Good Shepherd Anglican School, a missionary school deep in the hinterland of the country. It was a blessing in disguise for he was charmed by the innocence of the Indigenous People – their customs, the virginity of the flora and fauna, by purity of the waterways which in turn occasioned the Muse to visit him. It was the start of a versatile and prolific writing career, a career that was recently truncated by death. Recalling that moment, Bissundyal said, ‘I wrote my first piece, a long poem Glorianna. After that I couldn’t stop writing’.
So far he has written more than five novels including Whom The Kiskadees Call, Peepal Tree Press, England, 1994, Labaria Puraan, Paddy Sheaves Books, Guyana, 1995, and Game of Kassaku, Geica, New York, 2002. A prolific playwright, he has written more than a dozen plays. Those produced include The Trick and the Raajah, Theatre Guild, Guyana, 1987, From Ganges to Demerary, Samuell Beckett’s Theatre, Canada, 1988, and the National Culture Centre, Guyana, 1990, The Jaguar and the Flute, Theatre Guild, Guyana, 1991 and Epilepsia National Cultural Centre, Guyana, May 2005. His books of poems include Glorianna, self-published, 1976, The Presence, published by Roopnandan Singh, 1996, and Lotus in the Mud, published, Paddy Sheaves Books, New York, 2000. He also wrote more than four screenplays. Out of his first effort, his fervor for writing grew stronger despite bits of successes and daunting failures. From the interior of Guyana, he moved to the Hindu College, on the East Coast of Demerara where ‘within three months I completed another long poem, The Stream of Red Tears; then I started writing my first novel, The Blossoms of Love. My long poem won a Certificate of Excellence at Guyfesta, a Guyanese festival of creative arts, but my novel had received more than thirty rejection slips: it was never published’.
Encouraged by an actor, Godfrey Rocke, Bissundayl turned his attention to writing plays. After some minor successes at the community level, he got a major breakthrough The Trick and The Raajah was staged at the Theatre Guild in Georgetown. The following year the play, From Ganges to Demerary, was accepted at York University, Toronto. This opened many doors to him, regionally and internationally.
But back on the local scene, he experimented with drama – how to get it to the people. He successfully staged many ‘dinner & street theatre’ events which included his play like Mad No Hell, I is a Jumbie, The Jaguar and The Flute, and Migrant Error.
Always experimenting, Bissundyal turned to fiction writing but found he needed to devote more time to a novel. No problem, he resigned his job at the National Insurance Scheme. But this move led down to road to abject poverty; living on the streets. His contemporary and fellow writer, Doodnauth Singh, said, ‘I can remember the times he slept on a stall at Bourda Market although he was a Literary Editor for one of our weekly newspapers. He wrote Labaria Puraan spending many days at the St. George’s Cathedral, eating little or nothing for days’.
But then it was from the bottommost to the uttermost. In 1996, lo and behold, he had to choose between a fellowship in creative writing at Miami University and the Vera Rubin Residency Award at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs. He went down the Yaddo road, completing his MFA in 2003. Then he did a Ph. D. degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at Union Institute & University, Ohio. At the investiture ceremony, Churaumanie Bissundyal recorded his feeling thus, ‘My moment of investiture met me in a world of stupor, yet I was aware of everything: my brothers snapping cameras at me, the audience applauding, music blaring, the rising fever of excitement. When Dr. Larry Preston dropped the doctoral hood around me, I remembered at once my struggle and pains …to reach where I am today. Sometimes I thought I was riding a horse to reach the moon’.
Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
What’s happening:
Check out Guyana Book Foundation, 66 New Garden & Anaira Streets, ‘Matching Fund Project’ between May 2 and July 20, 2018, for all levels of books at concessionary price. For further information, please call 227-4942. (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
