The poems, the Peepal tree in Enmore and the bus driver who doesn't smoke near to children

The poems

Two of the book club members and me are in a minibus heading to Enmore for our May book club meeting.  The book club selects a book around India/Indians for Indian Arrival in May. This year the book club decided to go outdoors, and to join one of the members in her home village of Enmore. 

The book is Sacrifice : Poems on the Indian Arrival in Guyana by Peter Jailall

The minibus driver playing Chutney and spicy bollywood remixes. It seems appropriate for the journey which is taking a while due to the road works. Every now and then I try to "Screw some bulb and winin' out of time" like the  Coolie Bai Coolie Bai is playing in the bus.

Our directions said to stop at Big V taxi. Conductor stop us at Lucky 'Big V aint got taxi'. We heard later that there is a link up between bus drivers and taxi service and bus driver stop you near their friends.


Taxi driver took us in, said yeah he know where we going. - the Peepal Tree Monument Gardens.
"Uncle Beni place". We showed him the book of poems, but he didn't know about the poet who we heard had connections in Enmore. I wonder when last he had read a poem. But truth be told, if it were not for the book club, I probably would not be reading poems either.

As is normal in our book club, some people had not read the book. So we agreed to read the poems aloud.

The peepal tree
The peepal tree is a young one, replacing one which had died. The land of the parl is the site for one of the first mandirs in Enmore.. Peepal trees grow around mandirs.  I wanted to sit under the peepal tree but book club democracy and we sit around the Roundabout., and I sat facing the tree. Imagining myself under it.

We read poems aloud. In my head, thinking of how I left my house the good good Saturday afternoon to end up in Enmore to sit with others to read poems aloud. I think it would be good to do this journey every May month.

And I wondered about the villages and so, about whether poems are read aloud anywhere (apart from School and maybe church/temple/mosque .


Baan fuh wuk
The group members ask me to read a poem called Baan fuh Wuk. Dealing with different themes from the Coolie Bai song in the minibus.  Honourable wuk like plaan sugar, plaan rice,plaan bhagee.

I feel like a fraud reading because nothing I plant ever grows.

Another book club member and me have to leave. We have wuk to do at home.

Walking out and admiring flowers, and plants. Even though I can't plant/grow anything I like to admire people's gardens. We pass a house with some people 'teking a drink'.

Some people have their  yards neat, lil bit concrete, beautiful plants in the ground . My memory of old time Country and City. I am in awe of one hibiscus growing wild almost.. nuff flowers. Concrete is taking over the yards though.

Fiery red bus comes up."Yeah we going down [to Georgetown]".   Descendant of Indian immigrants driving. He puts on the Bollywood remix , loud. Ignores my request to turn down.

 Bus turns a corner, back to the house we passed where people were teking a drink. Driver jumps out. Conductor jumps out, Driver says to conductor 'stay in bus' . Conductor is radical though, and rebellious and goes in with him.
We gaff in the bus. We wait.

And then we decide nah, this wait is too long. Jump out of bus.

Bus driver descendant of Indian immigrants who toiled on the sugar plantation shouts "Where yall going.. I coming just now.. "

"Tek yuh time I holler back in quiet Enmore, I aint want yuh choke ' in a way in which I see from his face that he recognised that I might have wanted him to not choke to death, but maybe to experience  a lil discomfort so he could know what we feeling at wasting our time in his bus.

So much for jahaji unity and so on, and the spirituality of the peepal tree.

I don't know if a poem could be written about hard working bus drivers who oppress their passengers, probably in revenge for the Sacrifice of their ancestors on the sugar plantations.




No smoking near to children 
Another bus stops. We think it is going back to town because a woman and two children come in.  Driver is another descendant of people who might have arrived from India and toiled in the cane fields.
Bus driver jumps out to take a pee in a drain nearby. Enmore must be a toilet for some people.
Driver though, comes back and cleans hands with hand sanitiser. I am like wah.. because I usually do a quick wipe of my hands over my pants and so whenever I do as the driver did.

Young conductor takes out a cigarette.  Driver hollers on him.. 'Don't smoke, they have children in the bus'..

I try a thing about how it illegal to smoke in the bus, but well law and minibus and so.. , and how it not good for him. I didn't talk loud enough though.

Driver vex bad though.. "I smoke, I got two chirren, but I don't smoke near them"

So maybe the anti-smoking campaigns reaching some people.

I don't now when last he read a poem.