Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Sharad Navratri 2023 .  A prominent young Guyanese Pandit is clear. He asks those protesting Israel's response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli citizens - "what about the other side, those who were raped, beaten and murderd, no one is talking about them" Never ending problem as terrorists who describe themselves as Muslim or Islamist have attacked others who are not, including Hindus, so people invoke the 'selective outrage'. Many from Guyana who protested the Israeli response during Sharad Navratra 2023 in Guyana condemned Hamas.  Some like me stayed far from the janjhat in the Middle East. Out of my sphere of control. A Guyanese Muslim woman agreed with me.. the Middle East is complex, hundreds of years of living together and living apart, with layers of religion and other divisive structures. And friends turn enemies and then turn friends  (Hamas and Israel, against the PLA) again and so on Not our problem.  We have other problems   Sharad Navratri 20...

  Knives Chaitra Navratra 2025 this week and people talking about how the man defend himself against the woman by killing the woman with nuff bullets who had to pick up a knife to defend herself after he slapped her .  Nothing new really as all the men who beat and abuse women are defending masculinity, their honour (she disrespect me'.. she mek me do it'.. ) , 'she look for it' - men who have raped children have said the 'children were seducing them' .   Durga is presented with weapons, all the weapons of all the Hindu male deities apparently and she and her other awatar Kali kill demons, male demons .  The weapons and demons are meant to be virtues and vices respectively.  First time in a TV show, woman is cutting up vegetables for Christmas Dinner. Quiet older white woman. Man knocks her down to the floor as he defends masculinity. Not the first time. She uses the knife and kills him. People are shocked that the man used to abuse her.  Fiction But ...

  Dear fed up and frightened Hindus in OneGuyana Seeta Ram. The morning after the OneGuyana Phagwah , one of you expressed your frustration about how the OneGuyana Phagwah thing at the stadium was very far away from what many Hindus would have been hearing in mandir the morning of Phagwah. While OneGuyana did have a line about 'no alcohol, no meat' , as with so many of the 'messages' is that you can talk one thing but don't really bother about any thing and from my timeline I realised that nuff people enjoyed the OneGuyana Phagwah and as they do with many other of the OneGuyana rules and laws, didn't bother.. Alcohol and Phagwah Yep, the alcohol and Phagwah thing, like the 2025 Ramnavami date, got different Hindus thinking different things. Some devout Hindus on my timeline ignored the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha's appeal for no alcohol and shared proudly their enjoyment of alcohol with the love and unity.  is controversial. Some of us acknowledge the history...

Translation of Bhartal - Chalo Piya Soyi Rahi from "Chowtal Rang Bahar" done by Ramnarine Sasenarine and Peter Manuel(2010) Sacred and erotic The Pandit shouts at me "Do you know what kind of bollywood song they were dancing Diwali night, don't they read the translations before they decide.. the lyrics are vulgar" .    "Nah we not singing that" one of the devout Hindu men I know says as  we read the translation to my favourite bartaal. I was like what the hell.., somebody planning a night of passion with the 'beloved " and not wanting the husband, elder brother wife to hear anything.. and while beloved means 'Hari, possibly Krishna.. I mean yeah.. we Hindus sing about adultery with God and so as part of the sacred. And when at the end of a chowtaal/Holi programme in the mandir, and the Pandit sings Rang Baarse .. and I think of the context.. I mean is a man singing to he lover while her husband deh bout.. .. and the language is clear.. the...

  Dear Diya  There is no breeze and I like how your flame is nice and steady. There are bombs going off all over, made from fire too, and bombs which we don't hear killing children and adults in places where Diyas might not be lit. It is just one of you this year again, part of the tradition as the soul of another relative moves on.  I am glad the flame came up at the relevant point in the prayers. Do those people who  throw squibs, and those who allow them to make noise also say prayers , preferring bombs and squibs in their worship to the quiet light you give? There are a lot of diyas and lights being lit around the place without the prayers. It is like if there is a need to remove the sacred Hindu from you , make you secular , no puja and so, just food and decorations and lights. Hearing how Presidents who aint Hindu lighting up diyas in their houses and so on, and in USA playing aarti and so.  But dear Diya, scary how some of dem coolie people think that w...

Minibus Minibus sound blaring .. 'if dem woman come fuh f.. odder man.. s..t.. f..k' and I ask the driver what happening, if he aint got nutting else to play. Driver said DJ is lawless and tries to fiddle with the keys while managing the road. But the Driver though seems powerless, can't change the DJ's 'lawlessness' , cussing up, and so on which in the minibus.. he can't find any alternative on his playlist. Chaitra Navratri leading up to Ramnavami and many Hindus are fasting, in mandirs. Mercury in retrogade and I trying to avoid all negativity and so on , but I putting up with the Driver fiddling to stop the DJ cussing  because I want to get home , and I trying to mumble to the Driver that he have power to stop the DJ cussing up women and so on and glad minibus driving fast on clear road so I could reach home and continue my day in my fuzzy bubble. Power Sixth night of Navratra and I am looking forward to singing Ramayana with the Cummings Lodge Mandir R...

   Alcohol "When them man finish 'ooraway dhoor' (pick up the ashes the Phagwah morning after the Holika fire ), they walk around the village and sing chowtaal.. and every house, them a get a bottle of bush rum, dem time was bush rum" the man explained to me as we talked about alcohol and Phagwah. Some Hindu organisations ask that Phagwah stay free from alcohol, but some devout Hindus and others will celebrate with alcohol.   The Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha has led in trying to make Phagwah and Hindu lives alcohol free One evening after a chowtaal session, Pandit Rajin Balgobind recounted the story of Raja Parikshit and Kali (the asura, not the goddess). Kali, 'evil' resided in four places (and gold) - the place where there was gambling, where there was 'immoral relations between men and women', the places where there was violence; and the places where there was alcohol .  Other Pandits have reminded Hindus and others that Phagwah/Holi is as sacred as...

Navratri A clear night one Navratri. Beautiful satsangh in a beautiful mandir.  Mandir created as so many others in Guyana out of community desire for sacred space. Our Hindu ancestors came and land was set aside and made holy. Navratri celebrations are popular.  We sang that night in the Ramayana Gole, like the ancestors.  Young pandit, young people seem to be leading things. The blessing in connection, not so much to Shakti, the Divine Feminine energy, but to the ancestors who sustained belief in that Energy. Come out at the back of the mandir to look at the sky. See the smouldering pile.  Styrofoam boxes.. slowly burning.. huge pile.. plastic containers also burning. Wish I could say something. I don't know the people though. Host, guest relationship. Similar issues around as the generosity of the mandir hosts , the new technology of the disposable 'sanitary' , the noise, the murtis out of plastic, means around the world that Hindu festivals now create environment...

Written in 2018 Navratra and I am thinking of the Hindu men I know, some of them are pandits, who will be celebrating with me. Thinking of messages I have heard and read from pandits, some young and some old, and thinking of the messages I would have liked to give them in return. Thinking of how Navratra is an important time for Hindu men to assert their faith by understanding equality. 1. Don't be like Rishi Kapoor. Rishi Kapoor grabs a woman by her hair in Kabhi Kabhi and sings one of my favourite songs. Other men have held women by their hair in the same way and abused them, knocked their heads on floors and walls , or cut off the hair.     In Chandini, Rishi Kapoor turns off the light and grabs the young Sridevi. His grip on her results in marks on her skin. He reminds her of his violence by showing her the broken bangles he kept.  (Euphemism for how some men 'keep she panty' as a trophy ?) Rishi Kappor then terrorises her on a motorbike as she asks him ...

My first instinct was to giggle hysterically and then I felt a deep sense of sadness. I heard the nice woman, personification of decent Christian Guyanese woman,  upstanding with her moral authority saying 'Do you know know buggery is destructive? That structurally buggery is not good.. that buggery kills homosexuals .. that Men who have sex with men have the highest HIV infection rates.. I imagined her telling Christ he must not mingle with the riff raff.. and he must look after his robes and make sure that they don't get dirty. ..  I could imagine her and me telling minibus drivers to turn off the dirty music... The nice upstanding Christian woman was the first person to talk about ..er buggery.. in the National Library conference room. The National Library was the venue of  another attempt by LGBT activists to deal with God's love of homosexual which seemed to drive the public policy of discrimination   The first attempts were way back in 2003 The Nati...

GuyBow (Guyana Rainbow Foundation) hosted a discussion "LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights are Human Rights" on 9 December, 2017. There were presentations from a panel. The presentations were followed by discussions. The panelists were Melinda Janki - Justice Institute of Guyana;  Jairo Rodrigues - Guyana Responsible Parenthood Association and me. Guybow asked me to talk about Hinduism and LGBT rights so as to get other religious perspectives from the usual ones. Melinda Janki spoke about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the challenge to minorities in societies which were British colonies. It was noted that even though the British had decriminalised homosexuality for over 50 years, many of the former colonies still held out. She felt that the courts had to be used to bring judgements against discrimination using the existing laws and conventions.There were questions and discussions about discrimination in landlord tenancy, and in employmen...

Saturday morning. Baigan choka and roti at the roti shop on the East Coast.  Some mornings there is vicious cussing and so but it is a nice quiet morning . A 'gay' walks in.. (male to female transgender). Normal occurrence in many parts of 'rural' Guyana where there is acknowledgement that people can be different. A man in shades and with tattoos hails up and there is banter between the two.. the 'gay' playfully brushing his hand on the young man's head before going to eat.  Free space.   Saturday morning. Strange headline in the Chronicle " Can’t fight hate with hate — Simpson calls on Guyanese to reject Islamophobia.  There was a private function hosted by Scheherazade and Kashir Khan who have rejected the violence committed in the name of Islam.  The event was co-hosted with SASOD.   I know the Khan family and I do not believe they have to accept responsibility for anything that any other person does in the name of Islam. I was a member o...

Image from http://www.healthy-heart-meditation.com/sufi-heart.html Breezy West Coast night. The powerful violinist playing and the breeze carrying the notes. Children playing and laughing. Families, Many women, some in hijab, some not. Anna Catherina Islamic Complex  compound. Sufism  is not widely practiced in our traditions in Guyana. Sufi music is known perhaps through Bollywood. The person who keeps reading Rumi is one of my atheist friends of Muslim extraction who is active in fighting against injustice . The High Commission  of India, the  Anna Catherina Islamic Complex   and others hosted Indira Naik and a troupe of excellent musicians in a crazy week. A week when the country had to deal with the PPP continued destruction of values which many had hoped had died away with Burnham The stage is a symbol of coolie creativity - the trailer owned by the Hindu man decorated and serving the purpose The man next to me wondered '...

Two bookmarks in Coolie Woman I had the book since May. My mother read the book first,  then my father read it after - I think this must be the only book that all three of us have read.I  had dipped into it but  I am not sure why I did not start reading it properly - from cover to cover.  This is not a review of Coolie Woman : The Odyssey of Indenture by Gaiutra Bahadur . It is a long ramble, a tribute I think. Navratra Navratra is a nine-night festival when Hindus worship the divine Mother,  Shakti the creative force.  I opened the book around the start of Navratra in September. During Navratra, the Ramayana Gole goes to mandir most nights to sing.  There are more women in the mandir than men. I dread the katha time though, because sometimes the sexist crap comes out of the pandit. And so I spend a lot of my Navratra policing which crap comes out and from who, rather than engaged in devotion per se.  It is getting better though an...