Ravi the Unknown Prince (2 page)

“That old woman is your aunt?” I enquired.

“Yes,” she replied, at least she was being honest.

In the late sixties tuition fees at the Government Technical Institute were abolished and in January of that year a new Institute was set up in New Amsterdam.

I got a place in that Institute and went there to study chemistry, biology and geography.

Life was tough. When I ran out of money, I would sell the dried coconuts, and lime, and whatever the land produced.

It helped me to finance myself and to pay my fare for the ferry crossing to the school in New Amsterdam.

In my class, there were children from all back-grounds; some whose parents were well-off in Government jobs, others rich rice-producing farmers, but they were going there just for the fun of it.

For me, I was determined to make something of myself and held on to that determination with patience and perseverance, and to make good progress at the outcome.

Three years later, now 18 years old, I met a man named Ismael at the ferry crossing in New Amsterdam.

He came up to me and asked if I was Arjuna’s son Ravi. I answered, “Yes uncle.” He told me he knew my father and grand-father, and that they were remarkable people.

I thought, what’s that got to do with me? They were dead and gone and I was alive and a struggling orphan.

He asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I was looking for work now that I had completed my Ordinary Level Examinations.

But the jobs were all in the capital Georgetown, and that I did not know any-one out there.

He told me that he and his family were immigrating to America in the next six months and asked whether I would like to come with them, before another calamity struck our coast line.

There was a beautiful light complexioned short and plump woman looking on as we spoke.

He told me that she was his wife and that they had two children a boy and a girl but he did not introduce me to the woman.

I made an instant decision and did not pause for a second thought, and that decision changed my whole life.

I told the man who I called uncle out of respect, that I would like to join them, and take the opportunity to go to America with them.

We planned to meet up again at his house in Cotton Tree village, to discuss the issue further.

Cotton tree is a place where there were once a lot of cotton farms where the slaves planted and cultivated the cotton wool.

When the pods are fully opened the white wool emerges, and after under going certain processes, the fibre is spun into yarn and turned into fabric or textile.

I went home that evening wondering whether I should trust that man. I had survived two natural disasters; the first one was when I was around six years old.

We had the tail-end of a tsunami which took place somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

I clearly remembered my mother picked up my little brother Rohan and held on to my arm tightly and said, “Run Ravi.”

We ran inland with other villagers, but the water kept coming behind us sweeping everything in its path.

My mother had noticed that the sea went out at first and then she heard this noise from upstairs.

She said when she looked out she saw in the distance, a huge wave coming towards the seashore.

Our wooden house which was built on concrete stilts and foundation enabled it to remain standing.

But everything else was washed away; the sea flooded over the road and beyond.

It was the rice season, and many people were out in the fields harvesting their crops for that year.

Those who lived near by the sea-coast like we did; found that when they returned home, there was no house to go into. It was all swept away, and they had lost everything.

It struck at 2.30pm in the afternoon, with only one noise, as if to say I am on my way.

The workers in the fields came running, I saw my father running towards us and he hugged the three of us. My mother was shaken up, and he sat down consoling her.

I had survived that disaster and the plague of Malaria. Now this uncle was telling me, “Get out and don’t wait for another. Next time I might not be that lucky.”

I went to see Miss Price, my school teacher, to ask her advice on what I was planning to do.

She was like a second mother to me. I would always take some vegetable or fruits from my garden for her whenever I visited her and would never venture into her yard or house.

I would meet her at school or at her front gate to return any of the books that I had borrowed from her.

That day, I took with me a couple of dried coconuts I picked from the back garden. When I called at her front gate, she came out and I told her I wanted to talk to her in private on an important matter.

She opened the gate and let me into a downstairs room where there was one large sofa, and one single, and a table and four chairs.

At the far corner was a wood burning stove, like all the other villagers, we were backwards in coming forward in this sleepy village.

It was as though time stood still for most of us villagers, without any progress to show for it.

We had no electricity, running water was from a stand-pipe on the road, the road itself was nothing to talk about, and when-ever it rained the buses would get stuck in the mud.

It would take a tractor without the passengers to drag it out from the mud, we were not moving forward at all.

The Government were given funds from abroad to make improvements in the country but no one knows what happened to that money.

They lived a life of luxury, where-as the ordinary working class men and women were left to struggle through life.

No doubt people were moving away for a better tomorrow, eight years on, no government minister came forward to visit those who had survived our village tragedy.

All that they did for us was send two men wearing masks to spray every-where with some sort of chemical substances and disinfectant and renamed the village.

Miss Price told me to sit down as she poured out three glasses of lemonade from a jug with ice floating on the top.

It was always hot and humid in that tropical region. As we were not far from the equator it got very hot in the dry seasons with little or no wind during the day-light hours.

Shortly afterwards, a tall light complexion black man about fifty years old using a walking stick, appeared in the doorway.

She helped him into the single padded chair with pillows on two sides, then she said, “Ronald, this is Ravi one of my students. Ravi, meet my husband Ronald.”

I leaned forward and shook the man’s hand. He asked me how I was, and he told me that he was a Police Inspector at Wellington Police Station.

He was involved in a car accident a few months ago and was now recovering at home after leaving hospital.

“If you are interested in joining the Forces, with your height, when you turn 21, come and see me,” he insisted.

“Thank you, Mr Price,” I answered. I thought, at least a door was being opened for me.

Then I said, “I did not know that Miss Price was married.” She laughed as she said,

“We have a son and a grand-daughter, Aubrey our son is working in Mackenzie in the Bauxite Mine Industry.”

She handed me one glass, my mother always told me not to eat and drink from strangers, but Miss Price was not a complete stranger. I took the glass out of respect for her.

And I ate from the old woman when she gave me food, but I still remembered my mothers’ word.

Then she handed one to her husband, and she sat on a chair next to her husband holding the third glass in her right hand.

“I made this myself,” she said looking at me.

I took a sip from my glass and said, “It tastes good Miss Price.”

“What do you want to see me about,” she questioned.

I told her how I met Ismael and what he said to me and that I was meeting him in a few days time and I wanted her opinion on the matter.

Ronald then said, “I would go if I were you, follow your dream, everyone talks about the American dream. Now is your chance, you got nothing here to hold you back.”

He sounded optimistic and positive and I was waiting for Miss Price’s reaction.

She drank from her glass, and said, “I would advise you to go, like Ronald said, I know Ismael and his family; he has got a sister in America, and one in Britain.

They both got married before they left here; we were invited to Zaitun’s wedding,” she said looking at her husband; “When you were the district policeman.”

“Oh that Baccus family,” he answered, “the older brother, Yunus; safe guy.”

People along the West Coast, seem to know one another as well as most villagers.

They told me to see Ismael again and let them know what he had said. We chatted on various other issues before I left.

On my way out, I asked Miss Price, why she called herself Miss when she was a married woman.

She told me, everyone knew her as Miss Price, before she got married and she kept it that way.

Two days later, I rode my bicycle, which had once belonged to my father, to Cotton Tree village to meet Ismael and his family, with the direction he had given me.

He had a large white painted house, with a downstairs kitchen in a similar style to my parent’s house. There was no front gate so I rode in and rang the bell on my bicycle.

Two hammocks made from rice bag materials threaded through with ropes, were tied securely to the house beam.

As I braced my bicycle on one of the beams away from the hammock, Ismael came out and greeted me and took me upstairs to his house.

Where there was a large seating area with sofas and chairs with all the bedrooms facing the other side.

The layout was similar to my own home, except we had a few rocking chairs that my father had made himself.

He had photographs on three walls, one of a black cube in the middle of the desert, and a few with large Arabic writings.

He told me to sit down and then said I looked like my father, tall, slim, and good-looking. No one ever paid me any compliment before.

I smiled and replied, “Thank you, uncle.”

His son Harun came in, I saw that face before, but did not know the person.

He wore a white knitted hat on his head; he said Salam, and his father answered. I did not know what it meant so I said hello.

After being introduced, Ismael told me that Harun was training to do electrical work, as they were expecting electricity in that area in the near future.

“It will come in handy when we get to New York,” he said, Harun was six months younger than I was.

While we were talking, his wife Maymun, the woman I saw with him at the ferry crossing, came in with a tray of four glasses of cold drinks.

She passed the tray around; when she came in front of me she asked me how I was, like everyone else does. As I answered my hand was shaking as I took the glass from the tray.

She left the tray on a small table, with the remaining glass of cream soda and went downstairs.

Shortly afterwards, an older man came in wearing a white knitted hat on his head. He said, “Assalamu Walaykum,” and the other two replied “Walaykum Salam.”

He came over and shook my hand and I said, “Hello uncle”. He told me that his name was Yunus, the elder brother.

He then walked over and took the other glass from the tray and started drinking from it.

Out of curiosity I asked them, what was the meaning of their greetings to each other?

Yunus said it meant “Peace be upon you,” and the reply was ‘’Peace be upon you also.’’

“That is so beautiful,’’ I remarked.

“What do you practice Ravi,” Ismael asked.

“Nothing uncle, I replied and then I asked them about their religion, Yunus told me, that they believe in One God, and that they should pray five times each day, but they are still trying their best.

Their Grand-father who came from India would walk for 20minutes every morning and 20 minutes back for the Dawn prayer at the Sunni Mosque at Number 3 Village.

He never missed his five daily prayers. He and your great grand-father arrived on these shores on the same ship. They were best friends, and they would meet up and chat in Hindi.

Your Great grand-father died first. Our grand-dad Abdul Qadir used to say Mohana was a good man and he missed him.

They became good friends on the long voyage across the dangerous seas and oceans, and they kept that friendship till death parted them.

I asked them how well they knew my father and grand-father. Yunus told me, that they bought 20 acres of rice field land in the Abbary Creek from him.

He was getting old and could not work the land. What price they offered him he sold it to them for; he did not make a fuss, he was a good and generous man.

When the Savannah flooded and Ismael’s son Hasan was drowning, your grand-father tried to save him.

He left his cattle and ran shouting for help. He pulled him out of the water and tried to revive him, but there was nothing anyone could do.

Ismael then said, “I will never forget that day, when they brought Hasan’s body home. He was my first child and seven years old,” he remarked with sadness in his voice.

I told them about the ten acres of land belonging to my father. “If I were to leave for America; I would like uncle Yunus to plant the rice field, instead of grass taking it over.

I would get a contract drawn up stating everything clearly, and all I would like from that field, if uncle Yunus decided to take it on, would be, could he please give my teacher Miss Price a bag of rice every harvest.”

“No problem, Yunus answered, Miss Price seems an important lady to you,” he remarked.

“Uncle, she helped me with my O levels in three subjects, and for the other three I went to the Government Technical Institute.

Her husband encouraged me to join the Forces, but that would be three years from now. I liked to leave here while I am still young.” I answered.

Ismael told me, his sister Zaitun had invited them over I did not know much about the system and how it worked.

They were allowed to bring their family and I would be going as a member of his family.