MY UTTAR PRADESH SOJOURN - OCTOBER 2015 - Part 1

In October 2015, I embarked on a one-week tour of Uttar Pradesh, the homeland of my ancestors who
were taken to British Guiana to plant sugar after the abolition of slavery. I always knew that I was going
to visit the land of my ancestors, but I did not expect such an expeditiously planned trip. It had to be
made. I bought a retirement villa in Nedumbaserry in Kerala and my wife Shyamala had consulted a
Pandit (Panicker in her native Malayalam language) on the appropriate date for moving in.

Our new villa in

Nedumbaserry, Kerala, India

After consulting the astrological Hindu texts, the date chosen was 27 th December 2015. Prior to moving
in, the ritual entailed two major functions, namely:
A 16-hour pooja commencing after sunset on 26th December and culminating with boiling of
milk in the new house between 10:30 and 11:00 hours on 27 th, and
Visit to my ancestral homeland to pay homage to the departed souls of my deceased ancestors.
This was exacerbated by the fact that I was the first in 4 generations to own a property in India
Invitations were printed and guests invited for the 27 th December pooja. The onus was now on me to
visit the place of my ancestors.

Invitation for the 27th December housewarming pooja

It is with great trepidation that I embarked on a trip to Uttar Pradesh. Shyamala's encouragement
bolstered my confidence. To make the journey as easy and stress-free as possible, Shyamala booked
tickets on the luxurious Rajdhani Express. It was a sleeper train. I occupied the upper berth and
Shyamala was on the lower berth. Although cool and comfortable, the anxiety prevented me from
sleeping. As I reminisced on the conditions my "Bound Coolie" ancestors had to endure on the sugar
plantations of British Guiana, and the arduous journeys my siblings and I had to make to achieve
academic and professional success, tears flowed profusely from my eyes through the night.

Nervously seated in the Rajdhani Express

My life's history was recalled in great detail covering:

Grazing the cows at Palmyra Village
Planting rice at No2 Village and Plantation Kentyre
My youthful political career under the PNC regime which was capped by a speech in 1973 at
Burnham's Park in New Amsterdam to an audience of 14 000. My speech was the precursor to
Forbes Burnham's address. Prime Minister Burnham declared the following day as a school
holiday for New Amsterdam. When his advisor, Toby Lawrence, found out that I was from
Palmyra Village, he prompted Burnham who then went to the podium and declared that the
holiday was going to cover a 3-mile radius to include Palmyra Village which he described as
"Comrade Seecharran's home village", and
Using the tractor to gather fallen coconuts to make
coconut oil, a commodity in which we were selfsufficient. This was done while I studied for my
A'levels and taught maths at Berbice High School
Gathering coconuts in 1972, while studying for my A'levels

As dawn broke and I peered through the window of carriage B4, I was greeted by the Uttar Pradesh
countryside. Noticeably more arid than Kerala, I steered at the land of my ancestors. With my eyes
inches away from the window, surveying every minute detail of my ancestral homeland, I could hear
Shyamala asking, "Ramou, how did you sleep?" I lied and replied, "what do you expect, this is home?"

The vegetation is predominantly acacia, a species associated with an ecosystem which receives less than
600mm of annual rainfall. This was not dissimilar to the Central African Plateau, a part of the world
where I lived for 18 years and contracted malaria thrice, as my ancestors did on the British Guiana sugar
plantations.

Acacia shrub of Uttar Pradesh

As the train carves its way through a swathe of rural Uttar Pradesh patches of subsistence farming was
evident. What looked like land used for rice cultivation during the scant monsoon season, now had
patches of sorghum, pigeon peas and irrigated maize. Such small-scale holdings dotted the countryside
in a haphazard manner.
Although it was a Monday morning and during a school term, it took us about 50kms of travelling before
I saw a solitary schoolboy on his way to school. Lack of school attendance is exemplified by young boys
executing menial tasks such as selling vegetables, driving rickshaws and cleaning hotel floors. The
concept of "child labour" is alien here. The lack of girl children was evident. I asked Shyamala where the
young girls were? Without hesitation she replied, "at home, learning to cook, in preparation for an early
marriage. She is considered a liability while her male sibling is an asset, he works and provides for the
family."
Also staring an outsider boldly in the face is the lack of latrines. I counted no fewer than 30 people using
the fields as their open-air latrines. They appear to be inured to others around them or passing people!
The UPite profound respect for cattle rearing is epitomised in their daily bathing of the cows.

Buffalo in rural Uttar Pradesh, revered and

well cared for

The Yamuna River, revered by saints and sages for millennia, and believed to be 4 times holier than the
Ganges, is an environmental disaster. Its water has been diverted for hydropower generation in
neighbouring Haryana state. Such hydrological tampering has meant that the flow is insufficient to
suspend and transport the alluvial silt which it carries. It is this silt which was deposited by the Yamuna
River on its banks during the ephemeral monsoon rains over eons which led to the fertile MathuraVrindavan rice belt. This reduction in flow
has led to widespread siltation of this
majestic river.

Rice cultivation along the MathuraVrindavan rice belt, alongside the Yamuna
River in Uttar Pradesh

River Yamuna at dusk. Siltation can be seen on the far

bank

However, this environmental disaster has brought good fortune to many. This has come in several forms
which prevent competition and animosity, thus
Sand merchants are excavating the coarse sand and selling it as building material
On the finer silt, those with agrarian skills are growing cabbage, broccoli, peppers, cabbage and
methi (Fenugreek)
With the change in ecosystem, reeds are now growing profusely on the silt. Such reeds are
harvested and sold as fuel wood

Methi being grown on Yamuna

River's silt in Uttar Pradesh

The architecture is basic. Towns are sprawling and devoid of town planning, sanitation and electricity.
Often, cooking is done in open air kitchens in chuulas. Fuel wood, dried cow's dung and aquatic reeds
are used as fuel. Flat roofs are used as storage areas for grain, animal fodder and dried cow's dung.

The sprawling town of Varsana in Uttar Pradesh

Religion is a way of life here. Uttar Pradesh is the epicentre of Hinduism. All of the holy dhams (places)
are located in this populous state. This covers the entire spectrum from Haridwar, Rishikesh, Banaras,
Ayodhya, Mathura and Vrindavan. Religion is woven into every fabric of UP life. School kids drop in at
the nearest temple to receive the Lord's blessings (darshan) before going to school.

A new motor cycle is taken to the temple for the priest to do a pooja on it before it is used and a young
child is fed its first morsel of food in the temple in front of the deity.
Adult males and females routinely bathe in the "holy pond" of a temple on auspicious days. The next
holy day coming up is Kartik Snaan (Teerat), ending on the full moon's day on 25th November. This is one
occasion which we celebrated in Guyana by bathing in the Ganga (Atlantic Ocean).

A holy pond at a Hindu temple in Uttar Pradesh

Hanuman deity in Vrindavan and a Hindu temple in the forested area of Uttar Pradesh

The centrally-placed hand-operated communal water well serves an entire village. Clean drinking water
has helped tremendously in attenuating the incidents of gastro intestinal infections. Such problems
were exasperated by the absence of latrines and scarcity of water.

Hand-operated water
well helping to
attenuate the
incidents of gastro
intestinal infections in
rural Uttar Pradesh

Numerous holy men, saints and sages came to this part of India to do tapasya (meditation). Each such
holy man brought his family's deity (murti) and built a little shrine by the spot where he did his
meditation. Before meditating, the holy man would bathe the murti with a mixture of milk and honey.
That will then be followed by a cleansing bath of Yamuna River's water and ground sandalwood
(chandan). The bathing process is called abhishek and is still conducted in every temple today. Shyamala
and I do an abhishek ceremony every year at home in Mumbai.
The murti will then be dressed, offered fruits and arti done to it. It was only then that the sadhu would
start his meditation.
One day 500 years ago, a sadhu by the name of Sanatan Goswami was sitting under a shady tree next to
the shrine he had made for his murti. The murti was a form of Lord Krishna called Madanmohan. A
Muslim merchant was in his wind-powered boat taking merchandise to Agra for sale. He got stuck on a
mud bank in the Yamuna River. The merchant came ashore and asked the sadhu to recite a mantra to
free his boat. Sadhu Goswami ushered him to Madanmohan saying he is merciful and he is capable of
working wonders. The merchant knelt before the murti and prayed for his boat to be freed. On
returning to his boat, the merchant discovered that the boat was freed. He then left for Agra, waving
goodbye to the sadhu. On his way to Agra, he also got a favourable wind which landed him at his
destination two days earlier than his competitors. In the process, he was able to command a good price
for his goods and he made a fortune. On his return journey home, he dropped in to say thanks to Sadhu
Goswami. He explained how Madanmohan was helpful to him and generously donated money to build a
decent temple to house Madanmohan. Today, that sandstone temple still stands in Vrindavan about
100 metres from the Yamuna River.

The 500 years old Madanmohan temple on the bank of the Yamuna River in Uttar Pradesh
Shyamala and I took numerous darshans (blessings). These included:
The prison in which Lord Krishna was born in Mathura when his cruel uncle Kamsa imprisoned
his pregnant mother. Kamsa was warned that the eighth son of his sister Deviki (Deoki) will kill
him. He was determined to get that child and kill him at birth
The soft sand of Gokul (Gokulam). I've been studying the granulometry of broken rocks and sand
since September 1974, as a part of my mining course. We always knew that there was a
predominant size with smaller portions of larger and smaller sizes. If plotted on a graph, it
formed a "bell curve", typical for normal distribution. In Gokul, I found sand of one size, like
wheat flour and soft like talcum powder. As a scientist, I was aware that wind and water erosion
would carry the fine particles of sand away in suspension thus leaving coarser particles. This was
not the case. Even by the side of the road where vehicular traffic is causing turbulent winds, the
sand was just as soft!

Granulometry of natural sand, Gokul's

sand is of a single size, like wheat
flower

The broken mortar to which Lord Krishna was tethered 5 000 years ago by his mother when he
was caught stealing freshly churned butter

Bolstered by divine blessings, Shyamala and I were ready to seek out living relatives of my Indian
ancestors. We did not expect it to be easy because of three reasons:
The Hindi spoken here is deep and mixed with Bhoj Puri. Despite speaking 4 of the Indian
languages, Shyamala was finding difficulty in understanding people and getting they to
understand her
Being poor, many imposters will want to claim that they are my relatives in the hope of receiving
a generous largess. Memories of DR Congo came to mind. In the two years I worked there, I
offered a $US100 reward for the first Congolese who came from Kisangani. I was inspired by V S
Naipaul's "A bend on the river". To my dismay, not a single Congolese came to claim the prize
money, and
There was a fine and blurred line between Hindus and Muslims. Names like Dwarka Khan and
Yusuf Lal were found to exist here!

Shyamala and I during abhishek ceremony at home in Mumbai

....Part 2