In honour of Indian Arrival Day, which we observe today in Trinidad & Tobago, my maternal grandfather’s West Indian Travel Permit.
According to research conducted by my cousin Stephen Trent, my great-grandfather, Ganga Singh Bissau, was born in the village of Ghagiphur, “which could be in Northern Rajasthan, Punjab or modern Pakistan (who knows if this village still exists).” He would have come to Trinidad at some point in the 19th century to work as an indentured labourer. My great-grandmother, Bhagwanti Changoor, was born in St. James, Trinidad, of India-born parents.
Bhagwanti (Rosanna) Changoor, my maternal great-grandmother
My grandfather was born in Philippine, in southern Trinidad, and at birth was given the name Poon Mahabir Ganga Bissau, becoming Morton Dean Gangar after he fell in with some Canadian missionaries and was persuaded to convert to Presbyterianism. Several of his siblings remained Hindus. He married my grandmother, Petronella Quarless, a woman of mixed African and European ancestry, in 1930. They had nine children. MD, as my grandmother always called him, occasionally spoke Hindi with his siblings but never with his children. I believe my grandmother’s mastery of Indian cuisine came via her mother-in-law, who also pierced the ears of the five eldest girls (by the time the sixth — my mother — arrived, Bhagwanti was too old, or was perhaps was even dead by then).
MD died in 1973, when I was far too young to contemplate such matters, but by 1967, the year this Travel Permit was issued, I’d like to believe that he was thinking of himself as a Trinidadian and a West Indian, though up until 1962 — the year Trinidad and Tobago gained independence — he was a British subject. Perhaps more importantly, MD was a metrosexual: I remember him as an assiduous hair-comber, and he always smelled of after-shave. Which might explain where C*POP gets the trait.
Technorati Tags: indian arrival day, india, trinidad, caribbean, diaspora
Wow! The funny thing is that India or Indians in general know very little about diaspora and such.
Come to think of it, Neha, what country’s citizens — as a group — really have an accurate grasp of what goes on in other places? A certain insularity may well in fact be one of the conditions of belonging. There is woeful ignorance of what goes on beyond borders even among the Caribbean islands.
MD was the original metrosexual man!
I don’t know about “Ghagiphur”, but my district “Jhunjhunu” (in North Rajasthan) has a village by the name of “Bissau”.
It is a common practice among emigrants from my district (and there have been thousands of them) to use the name (or a variation) of their village or district as their last name (Jhunjhunwala, Bagri etc).
May be you should check out Bissau in Jhunjhunu as well.
My grandfather Julius boos hhad three children w/beloved indian girl. before turn of century., I would really like to know about them names, ages. I only hope that social distancing of those times can be overcome. I am nearly 65, Lived Venezuela all this time. I try to cook roty but…. I do hope you will appreciate my iniciative. Best regards.