Indo-Caribbean Heritage - Cultural Artistes

Where Do We Go From Here?

By Manshad Mohamed

So much has changed in so little time in the world of live Indo Caribbean music in the Greater Toronto Area.Gone are the days of indoor mega shows with attendances of numbers of 5000 or more patrons.And so too are some of the promoters and artistes as well.

Mr.Karamjeet(Ken) Singh passed away late last year and with that event,so did the mammoth Boxing Day events at Pickering Flea Market,The International Centre at Airport Rd. ,Constellation Hotel and before that the Toronto Convention Centre.Singh’s passion for live shows provided him with film footage to generate the Indo Caribbean Vision Television Shows.Indo Caribbean artistes sought him out as he probed the countrysides of Surinam,Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago,looking for new talent., There are a number of night club-like entertainment events, still being promoted by Calypso Hut personnel, that are exciting.This is also the showcase for Dancers,Tassa Bands etc.A number of local radio broadcasts are popular on week ends by DJ Riyad and Richard Aziz .Ben Singh and Gary Khan are presenting timely t.v.programmes.

In some of his early shows ,Ken Singh introduced the late Ramdeo Chaitoo as well as Kries Ramkhalewan of Surinam,late Sundar Popo from T&T, and the very popular full band with woodwind and brass instruments,the JMC TriveniOrk.of T&T.Singers from Guyana included Mohan Nandu, Gobin Ram,Celia Samaroo, ,Gems Ork and David Singh. Some other names were Kumar Dyal,Prince Ally,TarunaDevi and Devin and Denis Latchmana.

Outstanding musicians still providing entertainment are Karamchand( Kamo)Maharaj for more than 40 years,.Triveni Ork with Vindra Persad,Nari Mahabir,Andrew Raymond ,Bobby Armoogam, Sharma Ramdular and Harold Boodoo, among others. Outstanding tabla players during this time must include Tony Ramesar and Subash Rooplal and Dev Ramkissoon Jr .Music Teacher and performer Shri Dev Bansraj Ramkissoon is still making an enormous contribution in the community and many of his ex Students do justice to the name,Saaz-O-Awaaz.

Also quite active , are Dance Instructors Janet Naipaul,Shamla Persad,Kris Badree,Vindra Bhagwat,among others..In the field of Taan Singing,the Surujdeo Family and Dennis and Devin Latchmana are well known.Chutney singers are by far the largest number to list but we can easily remember Sonny Mann,Anand and Rakesh Yankarran,Prematee Bheem and Miss Versatile Drupatie Ramgoonai who is also an accomplished Calypsonian.The velvet smooth Polly Sookraj and Rajmanee Maharaj are at the top of this list of world acclaimed performers..Young Sarah Ali of Mastana Bahar fame was an efficient hostess and participant in many live and T.V. shows.Saxophone stalwarts Nari Mahabir and Ramesh Maharaj are still in great demand.

While there are so many others to mention,time and space will allow this later on.Much good preparatory work is being done by music Teachers attached to various Temples in the GTA and this augurs well for the future. There is more to come.Meanwhile,please keep the faith as we start this New Year of 2007.Best wishes all and keep the music going.

PRAIRIE JOURNEY : poems by Madeline Coopsammy, explores the experience of immigration

Paperback: 114 pages
Publisher: Tsar Publications (October 4, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN: 189477017X

==========

AUTHOR: Coopsammy, Madeline
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

BIOGRAPHY

Poet Madeline Coopsammy was born in Trinidad. She studied at Delhi University, India, and came to Canada in 1968, settling in Winnipeg, where she attended the University of Manitoba. Her poetry and short stories have been published in anthologies and journals in Canada and the United States.

AWARD

Winner, Canadian Authors Association Contest (Short Story), 1996.
Winner, Lady Eaton Canadian Authors Association Contest (Short Story), 1984.

ON THE CRAFT OF WRITING

I get an idea which just has to be explored in writing. It often starts with a tingle of excitement and I have a need to write it down. Often, I leave what I have written for days, weeks, even years.

ADVICE TO NEW WRITERS

Writing is not a career unless you are independently wealthy or are prepared to live on subsistence wages and lead a frugal lifestyle, unless you turn out to be a Stephen King or a J.K. Rowling.

While it is satisfying to see your words in print, it is important to understand that writing will garner respect from some, but not all.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Prairie Journey. A book of poems which explores the experience of immigration from a warm green tropical island to the changing seasons of a Prairie landscape. TSAR; 1-894770-17-X; 2004. Poetry.

=================
There and back again

Trinidad-born, Canada-based poet Madeline Coopsammy launched her first book, Prairie Journey, at the National Library on April 15.

The author, whose poetry and short fiction has been anthologised in the US and Canada, is probably best known for her poem The Second Migration. It was used as the title of a Toronto conference on the 150th anniversary of East Indian immigration to Trinidad.

The poems in the new book span many years—the earliest, Delhi, was written out of her student days in India in the 60s. Prairie Journey is arranged in sections by geography, from Trinidad to India and Canada and back to Trinidad.

In an e-mail interview with Lisa Allen-Agostini in April, Coopsammy talked about her themes and her writing.

LAA: What was the process of writing poetry like for you in the early days, compared to the later work? I see a difference in tone and subject and style and wonder if it’s because poetry has got easier or harder for you to write.

MC: I definitely think that it has gotten easier. I certainly feel freer, I am less reluctant to express my ideas. When I began, I was always afraid that perhaps what I had to say was not important enough or that no-one would be interested in reading it. I began to write poetry as a release from all the things that troubled me, or when I was bored. I remember some particularly dull university courses that made me sit down and put my thoughts to paper to relieve the boredom.

Your book has joined the small but growing number by East Indian-identified Trinidadian women writers, including Ramabai Espinet. What do you think your experience in the Indian community here has brought to your writing, if anything?

I felt very isolated being East Indian in Port-of-Spain, and though St James, where I grew up, was populated by many East Indians, I was never part of the East Indian community. This is because I attended the convent—I say the convent, I mean St Joseph’s Convent—and most of my friends were from the other races, especially the mixed-race people. I often felt that I never really belonged to any community.

The strongest influence was, I think, our large extended family, some nearby, some farther away—that was my community. And the church. Church and convent school were very strong influences.

As I grew older, I found myself trying to be part of the larger Trinidad community and to be less insular, but the extended family gave me my roots, my base.

My favourite piece in the book may be the entirely sweet Subject to Icing. What’s your favourite and what’s the background to it?

It’s hard to pick a favourite. After all, poems or stories are like your children. One should not have favourites. Some poems have phrases and lines or sections that I feel are very well done, and I even wonder whether I wrote them consciously or where they came from. I like Roots, First Hot Dog, The Birth of Roti, King Corbeau, the first four poems in the book, very much.

I also like Prairie Journey and Island Breezes and though Island Sounds is a harsh and bitter reflection on what our island has become, I feel it has great strength in it.

At the same time, In the Dungeon of My Skin has been well thought of enough to be in a Norton anthology and The Second Migration was chosen as the title of the celebration of 150 years of East Indian immigration to Trinidad held in Toronto, so I feel quite proud of those two poems.

Could you talk a bit about your struggle between Trinidadian identity and the Canadian economy that you’ve articulated so well in your book?

Was that word meant to be economy? I’m not sure if that is the word you wanted. However, I will try to answer.

One’s Trinidadian identity is hard to shake off. When we were growing up, everything from away, from England, Europe, North America was better than what we had. As we matured, we began to realise that monuments and cathedrals and symphonies, everything that Western Europe had was not necessarily better than what we had.

I love the great monuments and buildings of England and Europe and I love some classical music, but I love my Trinidad rhythms, too, and our Carnival—as it used to be, not as it is now—and our calypsoes—as they were, not as they are now.

Our cuisine, as so much of the cuisine of the third world, has come to be loved and appreciated now. So that the economic stability of Canada is something we seek, but the spirit, the warmth, the uniqueness of our culture should not be rejected.

(From: Subject to Icing)

And I muse upon the wisdom

of these merchants of the signs

who sitting in their offices

could conceive of such a line as

“Bridge subject to Icing.”

It must have been a man

a woman would have known

that it would never do

would only make one wonder

about consistency and texture

and even will it ever dry?

(From: The Birth of Roti)

Parvati was the only one who

habitually brought

a curried lunch

packed in a carrier

the kind that only labourers used

and in those conquered islands

where “culture” meant

anything European

ballet and opera

and cucumber sandwiches at tea

her school lunch was despised

derided

the others held their noses while we

the few of us who counted ourselves

lucky to be there

were deeply troubled

that Parvati should

subject herself and us

to this acute humiliation

flaunting our culture

for all the world to see…

============

A migrant's cry
By Raoul Pantin
Sunday, March 6th 2005

Ever since there's been a West Indian nation, or at least a West Indian people, migration to the north has been a tried and tested route to a better life, a means of escape from the stultifying poverty of small, backward, insular and mean-spirited Caribbean islands.

Some of us who do migrate occasionally return home on holiday, flashing the almighty Yankee dollar and brimful of stories about how wonderful life is in the good, old US of A.

Rare is the "returnee" (a word I coined a long time ago to describe our migrants when they do come back home) who will admit to any kind of disappointment or disillusionment about the so-called Good Life.

Even more rare is the Trinidadian female writer who has gone through the mill of the migrant's experience and crafted out of it a collection of poems, titled Prairie Journey, which are well worth reading not only for their craft but also for their honest content.

So meet Madeline Coopsammy, nee Mitchell, a former neighbour of mine from Coronation Street in St James whom I remember best wearing her stiffly starched blue St Joseph's Convent uniform and looking skinny as a rake.

Mrs Coopsammy has grown somewhat since, and how.

Her first taste of migration was India, where she attended Delhi University. And then it was on to Canada, where she met a Tunapuna boy called Lloyd Coopsammy, got married and didn't exactly live happily ever after (though it had nothing to do with her still happy marriage but in fact had to do with the life she encountered).

Mrs Coopsammy's poems are wracked with angst. This is a poet with a clear eye and her both feet firmly planted on the ground. She also has few illusions about her own journey.

In the poem appropriately entitled "First Hot Dog", she recalls that in her childhood the "American Dream" took the form of "Marlon Brando and Jimmy Dean their sultry-eyed surliness tearing at the heartstrings of every teenage island girl black, white, yellow or brown."

This sets the tone for what is to follow in later poems, which cry out the disillusionment that can also accompany the migrant's thirst for The Good Life.

"...the wonder and beauty

we sought

have brought us to

apartment blocks in

decaying inner-cities

suburban ghettoes."

Her poetic eye catches regular sight of a fellow immigrant in Canada.

"I see her every day

crossing the parking lot at four

a black anomaly within a land of snow."

That image of a cold and forbidding Canada returns repeatedly in other poems but is captured best in the poem titled "Recession and the Third World Immigrant":

"But now the land is vast and wide

and cold,

surprise, fear and anger greet them

from the Circle to the Island

the land is bone

will this winter of opprobrium, doubt & discord never end?"

Not without her own ironic sense of humour, in the poem titled "Birth of Roti", Mrs Coopsammy's reveals much about her background, upbringing and growth:

"Parvati was the only one who habitually brought

a curried lunch

packed in a carrier...

her school lunch was despised

derided

the others held their noses while we

...were deeply troubled

that Parvati should

subject herself and us

to this acute humiliation

flaunting our culture

for all the world to see."

The humble roti has since of course been transformed into a virtual national dish, and not just in Trinidad and Tobago. As the poet notes:

"Today our

Roti-loving culture

is everywhere

carried

to the farthest corners

of our multicultural earth

this global village

free-trade zones

the refugee-filled metropolises

of New York, Winnipeg,

London or Miami..."

This fine new collection of poems also contains a tribute to the playwright Freddie Kissoon, titled "King Corbeau":

"You alone above the crowd

stood to elevate

the dialect of our people

to carve a hero

from unheroic matter...

you built an epic

in a homespun style."

Her views on the Caribbean and on her own island are no less coated with her own perspective. On Grenada, where she seems once to have spent a holiday, she recalls the American invasion of 1983 thus

"...our spice-crowned

island of the west

was doomed to

ravishment and near annihilation

caught in the crossfire

of the power play of nations."

When she comes home to Trinidad, she builds poetic ideas around something as simple as "Tunapuna Market":

"Through thirty-five years of my wintry exile

the Tunapuna Market

remains unchanged, caught in a time warp

still unspoilt

despite American tv, the Colonel's chicken

those ubiquitous malls

overpriced and overburned supermarkets

surpassing any in the "developed" world..."

The Trinidad she's long left behind hasn't left her memories though. In "The Second Migration", she refers to the experience of settling in Manitoba, Canada, where

"...lounging in our bite-sized backyards

and pretending that we do not see

the curling vapours of our neighbour's burger feast

(his third this week)

borne on the Prairie wind across the picket fence

This collection of poems really explores two kinds of journeys made by the poet. One is firstly to India and then Canada; and then there is the return home where, in spite of all that the Great White North has to offer, the poet longs for the simpler things of the life she has known.

A very special welcome home, Madeline.

Indo-Caribbean CANADIAN Writers

A Bibliography

Baksh, Ishmael (Trinidad)

Novels

Black Light (Jesperson Press, Newfoundland,1988)

Out of Darkness (Jesperson Press, Newfoundland,1995)

Balkaran, Lal (Guyana)

Biography

Through Faith and Luck (LBA Publications, Toronto 1999)

Birbalsingh, Frank (Guyana)

Works of History

From Pillar to Post: The Indo-Caribbean Diaspora

Indenture and Exile: The Indo-Caribbean Experience (Ed. Tsar Publications, Toronto, 1989)

Indo-Caribbean Resistance

Literary Criticism`

Passion and Exile: Essays in Caribbean Literature

Bissoondath, Neil (Trinidad)

Novels

A Casual Brutality

The Innocence of Age

Digging Up the Mountain

Short stories

On the Sea of Uncertain Tomorrows (a collection of stories)

Commentary

Selling Illusions

Dabydeen, Cyril (Guyana)

Poetry

This Planet Earth (1979)

Islands Lovelier Than A Vision (1986)

Goatsong (1977)

Stoning The Wind (1994) Tsar Publications

Born in Amazonia

Distances

Heartframe

Elephants Make Good Stepladders

Coastland: New and Selected Poems

Discussing Columbus

Short Stories

Jogging Havana (1992)

Black Jesus

Berbice Crossing

Still Close to the Island

To Monkey Jungle

Novels

The Wizard Swami

The Dark Swirl

Sometimes Hard

Anthologies

A Shapely Fire: Changing the Literary Landscape (Ed)

Another Way to Dance: Asian Canadian Poetry (Ed)

Deboran, Josiah (Trinidad)

Autobiography

Sawdust Caesars in Politics and Education (Self Published, Toronto, 1990)

Espinet, Ramabai (Trinidad)

Poems

Nuclear Seasons

Anthology

Creation Fire (Sister Vision Press, Toronto)

Hosein, Clyde

Short stories

The Killing of Nelson John and Other Stories (1980)

Itwaru, Arnold (Guyana)

Poems

Shattered Songs (1982)

The Sacred Presence (1986)

Entombed Survivals (1987)

body rites: beyond the darkening (1991)

Novel

Shanti/The Unreturning (1992)

Essays

The Invention of Canada (Tsar Publications)

Jailall, Peter (Guyana)

Poems

This Healing Place and Other Poems

Ladoo, Sonny (Trinidad)

Novels

No Pain Like This Body (Anancy Press,

Toronto, )

Yesteryears

Lochan, Dick

Dialect

Doh Make Joke

Fuh True

Mahabir, Winston J. (Trinidad)

Autobiography

In and Out of Politics

Maharaj, Rabindranath (Trinidad)

Novels

Homer In Flight, (Goose Lane Editions, Fredericton, New Brunswick, 1997)

The Interloper

The Writer and His Wife

Moore, Dennison (Trinidad)

History

The Origins and Development of Racial Ideology in Trinidad: the Black view of East Indians (Nycan International Inc., Ottawa, 1996)

Mootoo, Shani (Trinidad)

Novel

Cereus Blooms at Night

Short stories

Out on Main Street (Press Gang Publishers, Vancouver B.C., 1997)

Nancoo, Robert,

Nancoo, Stephen

Nancoo, Stephen E.

Who's Who

Indo Caribbean Canadian Who's Who, Profiles of Achievement

(Canadian Educators Press, Mississauga, 1995)

Neehall, Roy (Trinidad)

History

History of the Presbyterian Church in Trinidad (unpublished)

Persaud, Rajiv

Directory

(Publisher) Where It Is: Caribbean Business Directory (After Dark Publications, Toronto, 1996

Persaud, Sasenarine (Guyana)

Poems

A Surf of Sparrows (Toronto, 1996)

Demerara Telepathy (Leeds, 1988)

Between the Dash and the Comma (Toronto, 1989)

The Wintering Kundalini

Novels

Dear Death (Leeds, 1989)

The Ghost of Bellow's Man (Leeds, 1992)

Essay

Kevat: Waiting on Yogic Realism

Rambihar, Vivian (Guyana)

Research paper

Heart Disease and Indo People

Ramcharan, Subhas (Trinidad)

Commentary

Racism: Non Whites in Canada

The Social and Economic Organization of West Indians in Toronto

East Indian Immigration to Canada

Ramdass, Sheila (Trinidad)

Poems

I See You Everywhere (World Heritage Press, Toronto, 1970)

Ramraj, Victor (Guyana)

Play and Short Story

The Dead Son

Anthology

West Indian Short Stories: An Anthology 1880-1980 (Ed., with Kenneth Ramchand)

Ramsoomair, Franklyn (Trinidad)

Novella

The Gift

Sawh, Gobin

History

(Ed) The Canadian Connection: Bridging the North and South. (Carindo Cultural Association, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1992)

Compiled by Indo-Trinidad Canadian Association, Toronto,1998 for Indian Arrival and Heritage Day June 6, 1998.

Harry say the family phone back home
Not working right
The phone only calling him
when they want money
when they want advice
when they want something.
Sometimes they calling collect
just to collect serious change
from Harry.
Send it right away Harry
Western Union
Don’t forget now.

Boysie need false teeth
they calling Harry
to pay the dentist.
Car get in accident
Call Harry to help out
the situation
Children want copy book and pencil
Harry will send from Canada
What they think,
Harry have a gold mine
or a money tree up here?

And they always singing this song
When you coming down Harry?
Coming for Christmas?
Coming for Divali?
Coming for Carnival?
Coming for your vacation?
Bring down something nice for we
When you coming.
Ah go send you a list.

If anything will kill Harry
is that list
They want IPod and DVD
designer jeans
Harry can’t buy for heself
Hundred dollar basketball shoe
Fancy sari from Gerrard Street
Maybe a nice digital camera
Not less than 5 megapixels
Gifts for about fifty people
90 year old aji

and Mohan five nephew
Harry never see before.

And they waiting in the airport
with mini van to pick up
all them box Harry have to pay
overweight for.

Harry don’t get no vacation
when he go back home
Every little problem
waiting since last year
drop in Harry lap
Big brother from Canada will fix it.
Harry paying for everything too
He have to treat the family
When you have you must spend
Not so?

Harry say he need a family break
A break from the family
When the phone ring
use the call display
Let the machine take a message
Don’t answer for a week
Was out of town you know.
Let Boysie buy he own false teeth
or else enjoy some serious porridge.

Next vacation Harry
Heading for Cayo Largo, Cuba
Second honeymoon in the sun
Come back relaxed
Feeling good.
Them Spanish people really
appreciate your hard currency.

Now Harry have nothing against family
Family is everything
He might call them from Cuba to say so
But the phone system not so good
in Cayo Largo.

(From an upcoming collection of
30 poems on Indo-Caribbean Life)

Talking Mannish
By Ram Jagessar

Sudesh hit the dharam patni
(that’s the doolahin, the wife,
the soul mate, for you who don’t know)
He hit Dolly one slap
one little slap, just one,
like he used to do back home
when she talk too mannish.
And as the Trinis say,
everything turn ole mas.

Next thing woo woo woo
police cruiser reach
two second talk with Dolly
and a blonde lady cop
with a big black gun
marching Sudesh out the house
in handcuff and shame.
Neighbours outside peeping
even Dolly surprised
standing mouth open
she thought Sudesh
would get a warning.

Not so, the lady cop say
no options with assault.
Sudesh sleep in the police jail
say he will kill that Dolly
when he get bail.

That was only talk.
Dolly ban him from the house
he have to live batchie again
judge put him on a bond.
Next offence Sudesh
will make a real jail.

In two months
Dolly feel sorry
Sudesh gone back home.
But everything different
he ent the boss no more
if he only try
to raise he voice
and talk a little mannish
Dolly give him one look
and he see the blond lady cop
with the black automatic gun.

Sudesh sweet life
in Canada disappear
Just like that.
realize too late
Canada is not Trinidad.

Now he thinking to
go back home
checking out jobs
in Guardian and Express online
though he know inside
you can’t go home again.
Sudesh need
a little education
not book sense
but serious common sense
Made in Canada.

Batman and Robin, Superman and Lois Lane, Randy and Racquel Mahadeo, dynamic duos all. But Randy and Racquel exist in real time, not in comic books. The brother and sister pair always manage to steal the show and your hearts whenever they perform, as they sing and play music, serenading the crowds at concerts and satsanghs.
    We featured Randy in a previous issue (Indo-Caribbean Times May 2007), and now we continue our story feature on young role model Racquel Mahadeo.
    “Racquel is only 12 years old. She is still young, very shy and quiet but very intelligent,” says her mom, Mrs. Mahadeo. “ He Dad left us when she was quite young and I am a single mother brining up these children without their father, who doesn't even visit them. I try my best and they are wonderful chidren. I follow my religion and pray a lot and Randy and Racquel follow the religious teachings also. They play their music together and support each other. We sacrifice for them, as their father was never there for them, but he does support them now.”
    Like Randy, Racquel started her music career at the tender age of six years and gave her first performance also at six years, the same year she began learning music from Guruji Dave Bansraj at the Saaz O Awaaz School of Music in Brampton.
    Dave Bansraj does a phenomenal job of training our South Asian youth in music and vocals. Indeed, his training goes beyond the musical field; the discipline he instills reaches far into his students' personal lives. Their training in his school often influences how they approach homework and their relationship with their parents and family.

Meet Racquel Mahadeo

Age: 12 years
First public performance: Age 6
Where do you perform: Fund raising at concerts and satsanghs at home
Started singing: Age 6
Grade: 6
School: Albion Heights Junior Middle School
Fave subject: Science (not music!)
Fave teacher: Homeroom teacher Miss Overland (She is very funny and treats us nice. She gives us chocolates and sweets when we do good things.)
Fave sport: Basketball
Fave sport person: I don't have one
Fave food: Pizza with cheese, red onions and green pepper toppings
Fave colour: Blue
Fave clothes: Casual. Jeans and top (but Indian clothes for functions)
Fave actor: Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom 2 (good music and songs)
Fave actress: Aishwarya Rai in Umrao Jaan (good music and songs. It made me sad because after she was kidnapped and came back home her parents didn't want her.)
When I grow up: I would work in a small job and then become a policewoman. When I was small, I used to play “lock-up”
Fave book: Harry Potter
Fave instrument: Harmonium and saxophone
Summer plans: Go to Canada's Wonderland (I love roller coaster rides.)
    Racquel not only plays harmonium. She also sings Bollywood Hindi film songs and bhajans (Hindu religious “hymns”). She knows about 20 film songs and 10 bhajans that she can select from memory when she is called on to perform, and many others in her song book.
    “At public functions, I feel nervous or scared at first but knowing my Mom and brother are there helps. I quickly overcome my nervousness and later people comment on how good I did.”
    “ I go to music lessons every Tuesday from 5.00 to 7.00 pm. Guruji Dev Bansraj encourages me to sing more, continue playing music and do better in life. We have many opportunities to perform in the community. But I also play a western instrument, the saxophone and perform in school at Albion Heights Junior Mid School during the fall and also at Christmas time.
    “My friends at school don't know that I make public performances in our community. I haven't had any reason to tell them yet, but if I did they would say you're doing a good job, keep it up.
    “Mom encourages me, my brother Randy too. My mom is part of what we do and that is a good thing.
    All that is exactly what Racquel's mom wants for her and brother Randy. “I don't want them to get too big or famous, anything like that. I want them to remain humble and stay and serve in the community in whatever way they can. Money is not the question, but living a good life and helping people,” says Mrs. Mahadeo.

By Staff Writer
Flashback to 1999, Randy’s debut performance at age 6 is at York University , for the Scott-Mendez cultural program. At first he is nervous, but after his performance deafening applause breaks out. This makes him feel a little less nervous, a little more proud of himself, a little more confident. It gives him a sense of accomplishment. He does three film songs, "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" title song from the film of the same name, "Suraj Kab Door" from "Karan Arjun" and "Karlo Karlo", film not known.
   Now fast forward to April 28th, 2007 , his most current performance is at his home during a family puja. In addition to the usual slate of bhajans, he renders "Jheene Re Jheene" in different ragas. This draws spontaneous applause from the small religious gathering even though culturally it is unusual to applaud at religious functions. "Applause is always nice. It makes me feel proud of myself," says Randy, recalling the occasion.
   Meet Randy Mahadeo, rising star, child prodigy in Indian music and a young role model for all young people everywhere.

Age: 14 years Grade 9, West Humber Collegiate
Started music: Age 4 First public performance: age 6
Activities: sings, plays tabla, and keyboard
Favourite singer: Anup Jalota
Favourite actress: Aishwarya Rai
Favourite film: Umrao Jaan 2006
Favourite sport: basketball
Favourite TV show: Eye on Asia
Favourite season: summer
Favourite summer activity: playing sports
Favourite subject in school: Music, both Eastern and Western
Role model: My Guriji (Bansraj Ramkissoon of Saaz O Awaaz Music School of Brampton)
Wanna be: I want to explore my opportunities probably in music, preferably Eastern music.
Award received: 2005, “For Contribution Toward Enhancing the Lives of Tabla Kendar Students" from the Tabla Kendar School.

Randy lives with Mom Sheila and younger sister Racquel. Mom speaks in a soft, humble voice about Randy:
“He is devoted to his culture and is a very pleasant child, humble and loving. He always liked going to the mandir, doing puja and singing bhajans.
“He gets along well with Racquel. There is little misunderstanding between them and if any misunderstanding does arise, Randy is always the problem-solver. He even plays in lead role in getting her to practice her music more often”, says a very proud Mrs. Sheila Mahadeo who has successfully passed on values from back home in Trinidad to both her children.
   “Randy has received trophies at his school of music for things like best performance at school ceremonies.
   People love Randy to perform and they pay him what they want, but are always very generous."
   Randy has been learning music from the Saaz O Awaaz school under teacher Dev Bansraj Ramkissoon since he was 4. Nothing keeps him away from class, not even heavy traffic in winter and he has missed only one or two days at most.
Being so focused is rare in for most children, yet Randy has kept up his attendance at school and perseveres with regular practice on a daily basis at home when other young people would be doing other fun things! He has been going to his music classes for the past ten years, no mean feat. A love for music coupled with his Guruji’s backing make for a powerful mixture in his musical life.

   What is your motivation, what keeps you going in your music?

   "Music inspires me, but an even bigger inspiration is Guruji. He makes me want to advance more, go deeper. About me, he thinks I have a lot of potential. However, he won’t say who his best student in school is. He never wishes to make anyone feel bad or make them stop music. He loves everyone the same. Guruji always says that practice makes perfect and recommends one hour of practice every day, but I do two to two and a half hours a day.”
   "Because of my music, I have grown a lot. It doesn't interfere with my school work and all my grades are good.”

   How has the transition from childhood to youth and adolescence affected your music?

   “Moving from elementary school to high school has not interfered with my music. When my voice changed, though, I had to practice more. Although love for music is my main motivation, I get a lot of encouragement from my cousin Ramona Sylvan. She often accompanies me on the tabla and is extremely enthusiastic. She attends the Tabla Kendar School that gave me the 2005 award. My sister, Racquel, is also into music. She also practices regularly, and she also does well."

How has music changed your life?

   "Music relates to religion. It promotes
culture and love for your parents and Guru. It provides discipline and is a factor in character building," he says. "My sister and I don't fight, don't want to fight. We don't compete with each other because music brings a lot of love. It grounds you and if you are really inspired you want to practice more and more."

Do you get a lot of admiration from the girls in the audience?

Randy laughs, "Yes, I do get admired by the girls. It never bothers me. It is always nice to have female attention."

And what are your plans for the future?

"Even though I am good in both Western

and Eastern music, I would much prefer to pursue a career in Eastern music.

Can music heal people?

"Music can heal people because it works on your emotions. Each raga deals with a different emotion. Depending on the raga, it could heal. Bhajans also heal.

   What sort of public exposure do you get?

   "My public performances are on and off events mainly for the Scotts and Mendez cultural shows. We get an opportunity to perform once a month at the Saaz O Awaaz School in Brampton before an audience made up of all the parents and friends. Every year we have a graduation ceremony and we move up one level. I also perform at my regular school functions at West Humber Collegiate. The community on the whole is generally very supportive.”

Mystery Woman Behind the Veil
A Short Story by Roop Misir

Some years ago, I visited what was then billed the Annual “South Asian” Fair in Markham, just north of Ontario, Canada. As it turned out, this fair was mainly a Pakistani affair, showcasing a Muslim version of South Asian culture. There were only smatterings of Indian (Bollywood) and Indo-Caribbean pop culture. Interaction at this fair was an obvious reflection of the increasing respect and harmony of Pakistani Canadians with other members of the South Asian immigrants living in Toronto. I was heartened to note that a group of Indo-Caribbean performers was an instant hit.
Not bad, I thought. It was refreshing to find our people intermingling and enjoying themselves, as we of the Indian Diaspora could showcase aspects of our common culture with other members of the Canadian family.
In mid-afternoon, I went the fashion show pavilion. I was anxious to learn of the latest in men's and women's fashion to be modelled. But imagine my surprise when I received a tap on my right shoulder from a figure clad in a black veil? Clearly startled, I gazed in bewilderment at the unseen woman whose sparkling blue green eyes peered penetratingly through the meshed screen. Almost instantly, I was taken aback some quarter of a century back!
"Are you one of the models here?" I asked.
“No. I like to speak to you. Could you follow me?” said the veiled voice.
We wended our way to a less crowded area. Then she lifted the veil to reveal a strangely familiar face.
“Do you remember me now”?
After some hesitation, I answered in a perplexed manner: “Are you Mee--Meena-kshi” ?
“Yes”, was the reply in her once convivial voice.
“Well Meena, there was no way anyone could recognize ever you behind this black burqa.”
For a few brief moments, we exchanged pleasantries.
Then I reminisced: “Don’t you remember how you were such an outgoing girl during our days at Indian Trust College? And how you went later on to win the Miss Swimsuit Queen contest? ”
Yes, vividly. Quite vividly,” she muttered.
“When have you come to Canada from Guyana? And since when have you started covering up?”
“In 1975. I came without the necessary immigration papers here. With all that racial discrimination that was going on in Guyana, who in their right mind wouldn’t want to get away? I didn’t want to be another call girl of the Kabaka! Remember dem daze, Professor?”
“So?”, I nodded.
“Shortly thereafter, I got married in Toronto. Not that I was particularly in love with the guy. But in this game of survival that is life, you gotta do wha you gotta do”.
Then she protested:
Where the devil were you all these years? I looked for you all over in Toronto for you. Then one day, our friend Toby mentioned that you were living somewhere in Winnipeg. But where? But really, I had no clue about your whereabouts! I had lost touch with you.”
Gazing at me from head to shoe, she resisted the urge to give me a hug. Then Meena revealed:
“Things were OK at first, but increasingly, my husband claimed he saw a vision of some kind. Gradually, he became more and more of a devout Muslim man. A few years ago, he insisted that I observe a strict Arabian dress code”. Waddya think?
“This sort of outfit even in cosmopolitan…secular…Canada, eh?” I responded involuntarily.
“He tells me that secularism and decadent moral values in Canada are fertile ground for propagation of the religion of peace. He is obsessed with praying and reading.” she declared unabashedly.
Hmmm....
For fear of upsetting her, I refrained from the temptation of asking her if she was the favourite wife.
But baffled by this chance meeting, I inquired: “Where is your husband now?”
“Somewhere in the crowd”, she replied.
Then Meenakshi insisted, “I must be going, Professor”, as she hurriedly concealed her face behind the veil, and melted mysteriously into the swelling crowd and the sweltering summer heat.

Was I daydreaming? Or are times really changing?

Karr Dyal is a mature visual artist who lives and works in Richmond
Hill, a district of Queens Borough in the New York
metropolitan area. Queens is the home of diverse immigrant
communities. Richmond Hill is no exception. Most of these
immigrants have been arriving in the United States since the 1960s.
They are often called New Americans, to distinguish them from this
country's older indigenous and immigrant communities of Native
Americans, European Americans, and African Americans. They come
from Asia, Eastern Europe, South America, and the Caribbean
islands. New Americans have brought a tremendous ethnic, cultural,
linguistic, and spiritual diversity to Queens.

Tropical Harmony

Richmond Hill is home to the largest community of
Indo-Caribbeans in this country. Liberty Avenue, the main artery of
the district, is the community's principal corporate, commercial, and
professional center. Richmond Hill is also the cultural mecca of the
community. Seasonal, religious, and cultural festivals attract
Indo-Caribbeans from other New York City boroughs, other states,
Canada, Caribbean islands like Trinidad, and South American
countries like Guyana and Suriname, which are part of the Caribbean
region.

Therefore, it is not at all surprising that numerous cultural and
artistic luminaries of the Indo-Caribbean people live in Richmond
Hill. It is home to elder tradition-bearers and custodians who
preserve Indo-Caribbean folk heritage and arts. It is home to older or
mature contemporary creative artists who are influenced by
modern western training and culture. It is also home to a younger
generation of artists and cultural recipients who have either grown up
in New York since early childhood or been born in this country.

Karr Dyal is one of these mature contemporary artists. He is 40 years
of age, married, with a young daughter, and lives in a modest family
home in Richmond Hill. He was born in Guyana, and migrated to the
United States in 1983. A description of Karr Dyal's life and art is also
a description of the Indo-Caribbean community to which he belongs.
A portrait of the artist is also a portrait of his people's historical
experience and fortunes through the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.

Karr Dyal is a descendent of Asian Indian laborers who were brought
to work on sugar plantations in European colonies of the Caribbean-
South American region during the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. They were indentured laborers who replaced African slaves
on colonial plantations after the abolition of slavery by Britain,
France, and Holland at different times in the nineteenth century.
Most of the indentured laborers came to the Caribbean island of
Trinidad, and two South American mainland countries, Guyana and
Suriname. Trinidad and Guyana were British colonies. Suriname was
a Dutch colony. The indenture labor system ended in 1917 but the
majority of Asian Indians remained bound to the sugar industry and
economy. Their descendents, born in these countries, still provided
most of the sugar industry workers throughout the twentieth century.

Today, Indo-Caribbeans make up the ethnic majorities of the
populations in Trinidad, Guyana, and Suriname. These countries
have multiethnic and multicultural societies. People of African
descent, whose ancestors came as slaves, form the second largest
population segment. There are also smaller communities of people
of European, Chinese, and Native American ancestry. There are also
many people of mixed blood.

In the nineteenth century, Asian Indians were simply called "coolies,"
a pejorative term. Later, in the early twentieth century, the name East
Indian came into vogue. It was considered more respectable, and
was acceptable to the Asian Indians themselves. Unfortunately,
it obscured their Caribbean connection that was, by this time, the
birthplace for many of their children. By the second half of the
twentieth century, Trinidad, Guyana, and Suriname had become
sovereign nations. East Indians in Trinidad and Guyana then became
known as Indo-Trinidadians and Indo-Guyanese. Indo-Surinamese
continued to be called Hindustanis and Suriname Hindustanis.
Indo-Caribbean is the contemporary popular name that includes the
South American Indo-Guyanese and Indo-Surinamese. It describes
the ethnic and regional origin of the people, not their national
connections. It is a widely accepted name in the United States, where
Indo-Caribbeans have come to live since the 1960s, many of them
fleeing economic and political turmoil in their newly independent
homelands.

Karr Dyal's life journey and migration, and his cultural and artistic
formations, begins in Guyana. He was born in a rural village, Cotton
Tree, on the west coast of the Berbice region of Guyana. His father
was a canecutter, as sugar plantation laborers are called in Guyana.
The shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the banks of the Berbice River,
one of Guyana's largest rivers, were part of his immediate childhood
environment. The landscape was filled with sugarcane fields, rice
fields, coconut groves, and a rich variety of tropical flora and fauna.
The people around the growing Karr Dyal were skilled agriculturalists,
livestock breeders, fishermen, and artisans. The Asian Indian
heritage was also transplanted in these communities. Karr Dyal, like
most Indo-Caribbean children, grew up with spiritual and cultural
traditions that were deeply connected to the villges of India, the land,
and nature. He continues to express his love of nature and the
splendid tropical colors and shapes of his childhood in his drawings,
paintings, and sculpture. The Asian-Indian ethnic and cultural
heritage and the historical experience of his community are also
recurring themes in the artist's works.

These themes in the artist's consciousness are informed by deep scars
of racial and cultural oppression and economic exploitation. This
holds true for most Indo-Caribbeans. Leaving India was an
extremely disruptive experience that severed ancient spiritual and
cultural links with millennia of indigenous folkways. This wound
of displacement has been handed down in the Indo-Caribbean
communal memory. Indo-Caribbeans and their artists also interpret
the lives of their canecutter ancestors under the indenture labor
system on colonial plantations as the collective experience of a poor,
downtrodden, rural proletariat. Interpretations in Indo-Caribbean
historical writings, fiction, drama, music, and visual arts are infused
with protest against imperial and colonial domination, racial
superiority, and cultural hegemony. Karr Dyal's iconic sculptures
celebrating The Canecutter, Kowsilla: Leonara Heroine, and An
Indian Hero: Dr. Cheddi B. Jagan, honor and memorialize the sugar
industry workers themselves and those revolutionary leaders who
championed the economic and civic rights of these workers.

Harmony Stride

At the same time, the artist's work also celebrates the sacrifices, hard
work, and determination of the immigrant ancestors that enabled
them to rise out of poverty and oppression, and create
success stories. It is the same kind of voice and interpretation
that can often be heard in the ethos of all the multiethnic and
multicultural immigrant communities of the United States. It is a
perspective that forms the ideological basis of Indo-Caribbean
communal pride in the Caribbean-South American region and in the
United States of America. Karr Dyal seeks to express these complex
forces shaping his people's historical experience in the colonial
period in these words:

The immigrants came to Guyana from India, mainly as canecutters.
They idealized their culture, not only to escape the rawness of
making a new life for themselves, but also to express their
optimism growing out of the tremendous possibilities of the land
and earning a living. They were thus transformed from what they
were by the legacy of a colonial culture.

The canecutter filled an integrally great part of my growing-up
days. He was to me beyond human to have endured such laborious
task on a daily basis. The Canecutter was a man of survival, and
even though he is the lantern of our legacy, he never seems to shine.

Ethnic origin and the historical experience of the indenture
labor system are the two strongest constants in the Indo-Caribbean
sense of common identity. These form the basis of Karr Dyal's
sense of a shared communal identity that neither neutralized nor
erased by nationality and national identity. These constants
distinguish Indo-Caribbeans from other Caribbeans and South
Americans of African, European, and Native American ancestry.
These also distinguish Indo-Caribbeans from other Asian Indians
who are recent immigrants to the U.S. from the Indian subcontinent's
modern states of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Further, the overwhelming majority of Indo-Caribbeans from
Trinidad and Guyana no longer speak Indian ancestral languages like
Hindi and Tamil in everyday life. English and vernacular Caribbean
Creole English have replaced Indian languages. This has created an
even wider gap between Indo-Caribbeans and their relations from
the subcontinent. It has also created more intimate connections with
other Caribbean communities. Caribbean Creole English fashioned
by the African slaves is a rich and versatilelanguage of the Caribbean
peoples. It has numerous regionalvariations, and has absorbed many
Hindi-derived words into itsvocabulary. It is the language of the
Working classes, the Africanslave and the Indian indentured laborer
Karr Dyal belongs to this creole generation of Indo-Caribbeans.

Indeed, the colonial legacy has been a powerful and enduring one in
the transformation of Indo-Caribbean people, their culture, and arts.
The loss of the ancestral languages robbed them of millennia of
ancestral memory and sensibility. Many cultural and artistic
traditions rooted in Indian languages have died or are presently in
danger of extinction. A priestly and scholarly elite preserves
languages like Sanskrit and Hindi associated with Hindu
spirituality, and Arabic and Urdu associated with Islamic religious life.
At the same time, most Indo-Caribbeans still follow the
customs and rituals of Hinduism and Islam, their ancestral
religions, and resist conversion to Christianity, although there is a
growing number of converts to Christianity.

IIndo-Caribbeans have become a westernized people. It is true that
they belong to a colonial West, a Third World West, a Caribbean
backyard West, a marginal southern hemisphere New World West, a
colored East Indian creole West, but the West and the New World all
the same. It is little known that the Asian Indian laborers who came
societies where a synthesis of African, Christian, and European
preceded the Indo-Caribbeans in Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad.
They were converted to Christianity and European values by the
colonial educational system supported by Christian missionaries. The
Afro-Caribbeans became the teachers of the Indo-Caribbeans in the
twentieth century. The modern, contemporary Afro-Caribbean
creative artists express their ancestral memory, cultural continuities,
and diverse multicultural fusions in cultural and artistic genres learned
through a Eurocentric education in the colonial and post-colonial
schools in their native lands, and then, in the universities of England,
Holland, France, and more recently, Canada and the U.S. Modern
Indo-Caribbean artists, like Karr Dyal, entered this process during
the second half of the twentieth century.

The early modern Caribbean artist, then, whatever his ancestry and
ethnicity, emerged in the colonial and post-colonial periods of the
twentieth century. The creative artist often combined teaching and
creating painting, sculpture, music, and dance in everyday life.
Africans and Asian Indians brought their folk arts and crafts to the
Caribbean. Many of these have survived and flourish. The
traditional folk artist was usually a person who earned his living doing
something else like farming, fishing, or rearing livestock, though
some like goldsmiths could earn solely from their craft. These folk
arts and crafts were not taught in the school system. Cheap,
mass-produced, manufactured substitutes drove the folk artisan out
of business and the folk forms into extinction. Folk music like
ritual drumming and singing survived because it still formed an
integral part of ceremonies associated with seasonal, festive, and life
cycle events. The skills of material culture, such as basket weaving,
pottery making, and woodcarving, declined the most. By the time
Karr Dyal was born in the early 1960s, there was no vibrant, living
folk tradition in visual arts.

In 1983, Karr Dyal joined the growing number of Guyanese
migrating to New York. The migration coincided with growing
political turmoil and economic decline in his native land. Ethnic
conflict between Guyanese of African and Asian-Indian descent had
escalated. Indo-Caribbeans felt particularly vulnerable under a
virtual dictatorship that equated blackness and Afro-Caribbean Creole
identity and culture with the national identity and national culture.
Indo-Caribbeans in the new nation states of Guyana, Suriname, and
Trinidad continued to be regarded as outsiders. There was little doubt
in the mind of the Indo-Caribbeans that their reverence and respect
for the Asian Indian ancestral heritage, their Hindu and Islamic
traditions, and their social conservatism were at the root of this
conflict. They themselves saw no contradiction between being
servants of their native lands and bearers of their ethnic heritage.
They were also Caribbean Creoles, but did not want to be totally
assimilated into the European, African, Christian synthesis of the
older and more dominant Caribbean social order.

According to Karr Dyal, almost all of his artwork has been done here
in New York between 1983 and 2002, a span of 19 years. It is a very
significant body of creative endeavor. There are paintings in oil on
canvas and watercolor; there are drawings on paper using pencil, pen
and ink, chalk, charcoal, washes, brush, conte and gouache. Some of
these are combined in different ways in the drawings. His sculpture
includes pieces in wood, bronze, painted steel, and concrete. The
works vary in size from small pieces to large canvases and life-size
busts. It is not surprising that Karr Dyal has been an unknown artist
until this time. He sought neither fame nor fortune, only work. The
magnitude of his achievement during these 19 years is that of the
solitary artist perfecting his craft and challenging his creativity.
Or was in another journey, an inner journey of spirit, mind, and heart
where an immigrant, in this case, an artist, travels back through time
and space to a lost native land and life. Karr Dyal says of this period
and his work:

These works were about remembering. These are
memories I did not want to forget or lose. I was here in
New York far away from the things, places, and people I
was accustomed to. I could remember shapes and colors
and then make them into drawings and paintings.

Numerous drawings and paintings capture street scenes from
Guyanese towns and villages; depict the tropical vegetation,
parrots, and strong winds and rains of the tropics; or portray
dark-skinned personalities and characters.

The artist's 1998 oil on canvas Harmony Stride portrays lines of
ballerinas. Karr Dyal says that this piece comes from his life and
experience in America. An entire series of oils on canvas from
2000 to the present are inspired by the images and culture of the
artist's own Indo-Caribbean neighborhood. These works are
interpretations of the traditional long hair of Indo-Caribbean women.
Long hair is an expression of feminine beauty, magic, and mystery.
The artist sees patterns of ponies, plaids, natural
harmonies, and symphonies in the many ways the hair is arranged and
braided.

In 1999, Karr Dyal began work on bronze busts of two revered and
respected figures in the history of Indo-Caribbeans in his native
Guyana: Kowsilla and Dr. Cheddi B. Jagan. These sculptures marked
a significant development in the artistic life of Karr Dyal. His deep
interest in the recognition of the Indo-Caribbean contribution to the
historical experience of the Caribbean region and to the liberation
struggle of the Caribbean people had come to a central place in his
creative life. The busts were being cast for installation in public
places. The artist's work had moved to the creation of iconographic
sculpture and monuments that memorialize and commemorate his
people's heroes. The works related directly to the experience of the
Indo-Caribbean canecutter, the laborer on Guyanese sugar
plantations. The themes related directly to the interpretation of
Indo-Caribbean history as a story of struggle and sacrifice, of pride
and pain.

The bronze bust of Kowsilla, an Indo-Guyanese plantation worker
Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) under the leadership of its president
Komal Chand. The Guyana Agricultural Workers Union is the
Trade Union representing workers in Guyana's sugar industry.
Kowsilla was killed at Plantation Leonora in Guyana in 1964.
Kowsilla was a sugar worker on that plantation. She had joined a
strike by workers for better wages and working conditions. A wife,
mother, worker, and trade union militant, Kowsilla was killed when
the estate management ordered a scab worker to drive his tractor
through a line of striking workers blocking the gates of the sugar
estate. Kowsilla was in this group of workers. She was brutally
crushed to death on the spot. Kowsilla became a martyr and heroine.
She is often referred to as the Leonora Heroine, and her death
anniversary is commemorated every year in Guyana. When Karr Dyal
completed the bust, it was installed at the headquarters of the Guyana
Agricultural Workers Union in Guyana.

The bust of Dr. Cheddi B. Jagan honored the memory of one
of Guyana's leading politicians and statesmen. Jagan was
Indo-Guyanese, the son of indentured plantation workers. He
studied dentistry in the United States. After returning to Guyana in
the late 1940s, he became the founder and leader of the People's
Progressive Party that electrified the political consciousness of the
Guyanese people and mobilized the people to create the modern
political movement in his native land. Jagan challenged British
colonial rule and the sugar plantation establishment. He protested the
exploitation of the workers and successfully initiated the
independence movement. Jagan eventually became the President of
Guyana. He died in 1997, and was immortalized as a champion of
the poor and father of the nation.

In 2000, Dr. Surujpaul Ragnauth, a leading Indo-Caribbean medical
doctor, commissioned Karr Dyal to, create a sculpture to be installed
outdoors at the doctor's medical office in Richmond Hill. The work
Canecutter is 60 inches high and fashioned from cement and steel. It
does not stand in one of the many public parks and gardens of
Richmond Hill that are frequented by Indo-Caribbeans. It does not
have the grand, larger-than-life proportions often associated with
public monuments. Yet, it is a monument, a monument of the
most revered icon of the Indo-Caribbean people. It is the first
collaboration between a patron and artist to bring artwork related to
Indo-Caribbean communal identity, history, and culture to the public
places where the Indo-Caribbean community is centered in the U.S..
It represents the first step by an unknown but vibrant immigrant
community to announce their presence in the civic life of this
borough, city, and country.

In 2001, The Rajkumari Cultural Center in collaboration with the
Association of Artists and Writers presented an exhibition of Karr
Dyal's works at the Gallery of the Union Congregational Church in
Richmond Hill. Karr Dyal's own community had finally discovered
him. His community's leading cultural activists had taken
responsibility to present his art to his own people. It was a small step
but a step all the same toward bringing the artist out of isolation
within his own community. His community made known to
themselves one of their unknown and gifted artists. The dilemma
of the modern Indo-Caribbean artist professional is that the
Indo-Caribbean community has been rooted in an oral and folk
tradition that has been confined to religious center like temples and
mosques, parks and other public places, as well as homes. The
community's art has traditionally been a ritual, religious, spiritual art
practiced by folk artists who often work in other fields, unrelated to
their art. It is not the art of theater, gallery, concert hall, library,
and museum. The art genres that are most popular among
Indo-Caribbeans are, strictly speaking, entertainment art like chutney
music and Bombay films. Older, heritage art forms in the Hindi
language are no longer understood and appreciated by younger
Indo-Caribbeans who never learned Hindi.

The Caribbean artists who are the creations of the colonial legacy and
the western tradition and who seek to become modern professional
artists must look for markets outside of the Caribbean region and
outside of their communities. They must turn to publishers, agents,
and audiences in the countries that were the former European
colonial masters, England, Holland, and France. Many Caribbean
professional artists now live in the U.S. and Canada where they are
slowly finding audiences and markets for their work. Many of the
Caribbean's greatest creative artists have lived in self-exile in North
America and Europe, and made their fame and fortune away from
home. The portrait of the artist has been attempted but not
completed. It is a work in pen and ink, in black and white. First, it
seeks simply to discover. Secondly, it attempts to explore
cautiously a few of the many complex and interwoven lines that the
subject presents.

Graduating with a BFA from the school of Visual Art in New York has undoubtedly invigorated my knowledge and technical ability as an artist. My art training thus far has helped me immensely in differentiating between pleasing aesthetics and certain imbalances in art.

Migrating from Guyana many years ago having studied at the Burrowes School of Art in Guyana, I still cling to most of my traditional values. I continue to be hopeful and effervescent in helping to correct certain discontinuity in art and culture, which accompany migration and adaptation to a new environment. I am happy, though, that in my own niche I have made some progress in this direction. In this regard, and through commissions by a few conscientious agencies in Guyana and in New York, my work is now visible, even though it represents fragments of Guyanese history. While this may be a drop in the bucket, I feel its a start.

I feel also, that with the progression of time and inclination, there will be more vivid signs of Guyanese simulacrum through art.