Doctor by Chance, Mystic By Choice Surrey Doctor Treats the Physical, Inspires the Spiritual

Can you tell us about your home in Guyana?

My parents were indentured labourers from India and were taken to Guyana to work on a British sugar plantation around 1910. My father was twenty-one years old and my mother was nineteen. Being indentured labourers, they had to sign a contract to work for five years. After five years they had a choice of returning to India, continuing work on a sugar plantation, or being given a piece of land where they could live permanently and make Guyana their home. They chose the latter. They secured a small farm in the village called Coghlan Bush in the county of Demerara. This is where Demerara Sugar and Demerara Rum got their names. On this farm, they cultivated paddy, fruit, and vegetables. This was the place where I was born on September 10, 1931, the youngest of four siblings.

The indenture system was introduced in Guyana in 1838 after the abolition of slavery gave rise to the need for a new labour force to work on the sugar plantations. British owners tried to recruit from the West Indies, but failed. They then had to find alternate sources of labour. They brought Chinese labourers