Aajee Aur Nani Kahanis: Stories of My Grandmothers & More…

By Motilal Boodoosingh

‘Trees live long after we are gone.’
In a feverish rush in the evening of his years, Motilal Boodoosingh, through his Kahanis series, is engaged in planting fruit trees in the literary landscape of the Caribbean.
This book, his fourth on the trot, honours the memory of his Aajee – his paternal grandmother – by documenting some of the folk tales passed on to him through the oral tradition of storytelling.
As such, in contrast to the earlier published works, it is overlaid with a strong flavour of Hinduism, but continues to trace the evolution of Indo-Trinidadian history, tradition and culture.
The author’s memory of time, place and events is equally amazing, evident in his recall of what growing up was like in the southern rural district of Penal and its environs in the good ole days in Trinidad.
There is adventure. There is humour. There is philosophy. Above all, there is sincere appreciation for all of the good things that came his way – documented here in black and white for all posterity.
‘If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.’ – Albert Einstein.

At seventy-two, Motilal Boodoosingh is a retired Offshore Production worker. From the energy industry he switched, upon retirement, to the fields of literacy and literature.
He holds a BA in Literature and Communications as well as a Certificate in the Teaching of Reading. He also has an Adult Literacy Tutors Certificate.
He earned the right to be labelled a Cropper Fellow after he successfully completed in 2016 the Cropper Foundation Residential Workshop for Caribbean Writers.
As prolific as his writing is his frenetic involvement in literacy and literary sessions such as the Adult Literacy Tutors Association (ALTA) project of Readings Under the Trees, and the fortnightly zoom sessions of Poetry and Prose. Published in a number of magazines, he is also a regular contributor to the online literary magazine, my Trinidad, Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669878117

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

Divali, Ramleela and the Ramayana

Flying Kites

Revenge!

The Business Plan

Hanuman: The World’s First Superhero

The Adventures of Rama

Seeing God

Dance

Dance and Music in Hinduism

The Story of Karan

The Story of Savitree

Fantasy Stories from Hindu Mythology

The Wisdom of Paras Nani

Savitri and the Tabanca Tonic

Hill Rice is Nice

Mothers – The Real Superheroes!

Pathik! Pathik!

Ganesh Ustav

Beetan

LAGNIAPPE

A Different Easter Story

Love is for the Birds

Of Mermaids and Marine Maidens

Robots in Love

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

School Days

Glimpses of My Father

Remembering Independence Day

My Nine Lives

POSTSCRIPT: A SALUTE TO THREE

MAJOR INFLUENCES

Tony Deyal: Man for all Seasons

Remembering Al Ramsawack

Love and Marriage in the Works of Sam Selvon

Glossary

Foreword

If life affords you the chance to turn back the hands of time – seize it! And if this new burst of energy involves mining the ore of artistic creativity – snatch it!

This is exactly what Motilal Boodoosingh has done following retirement from the energy industry.

He is now passionately engaged in following his love of the written word. Motilal Boodoosingh is writing, it seems, with a vengeance. As one who has come upon his muse late in life, there is an anxiety almost to have the stories out of his head, and to be not only told but also published.

Ever since his retirement from the energy industry, Motilal has been throwing himself at any opportunity coming his way to invest time, energy and, I dare add, financial resources towards making his dream of a writer a reality.

The stories Motilal writes in his Kahani series deal with individuals with whom he seemed to have intimate knowledge, whether as family members, close and dear friends, fellow villagers. There are those that fit the notion of short stories with brevity and focus on one or more characters as chief characteristics; but there are also vignettes or fragments, and quite a few can be seen as loose portraits or sketches.

His material is the past. The days of growing up as an Indo-Trinidadian in the southern district of Penal. As such, the setting for many of the pieces is circumscribed in the locale of Penal and its environs. Stories are set in areas like Bhagarati Trace, Gopie Trace, Suchit Trace, Lachoos Road for example; events play out near the Etwaria River, and the Bakal Recreation Ground; and there are repeated references to Kaisaree’s Commercial School, the denominational school Holy Faith Convent, the government secondary schools, the Penal market, not forgetting the popular watering holes. In some stories, Motilal ventures beyond this space which borders really the counties of St Patrick and Victoria when he goes into San Fernando and has stories set in Pleasantville and Vistabella for example. But generally, his focus is confined to the area he grew up in and where to this day he resides.

It is as if his pen trawls the seabed of that time and space for material which when harvested he shapes into entertaining stories that give, like colour to a black and white film, a refreshing look of what life was like in Trinidad around that time.

Invariably his subject matter is the follies and foibles of the East Indian as they negotiate the inevitable evolution of the complex society they inhabit by dint of history and geography.

In this latest of his Kahanis series, in the section presenting the stories of his grandmothers, there is a heavy religious flavour, conveyed in a largely sobering tone; and this contrasts markedly with what we find in the other collections, especially in the spicy tales of yesterday, Chatak Kahanis.

Motilal is intent on being faithful to the ways his Aajee narrated the folk tales that he is documenting in this book. That is being true to the oral tradition. Thus, he would break into song just as his Aajee did whenever there was need to do so. On occasions, when the children who were narrated to found the stories too short, they would plead with their grandmother to sing – something for which she was always ready and willing to oblige. There was also that one dramatic moment of tension when his sister dared to question the plot of one of the stories citing illogical developments which posed a serious challenge to the credibility of the story. Motilal as attentive listener (and later author) was greatly relieved by the explanation his Aajee gave to his older sister Chandra.

Folk tales, while they engage the imagination and are entertaining in themselves, are generally didactic in nature. This explains why at the end of ‘The Story of Karan’, for instance, his Aajee has to explain its meaning. Sometimes, Motilal himself would come in with the authorial voice by stating what was the moral of the story, as we find at the end of ‘Flying Kites.’

As if inspired by the same muse as his Aajee and Nani, Motilal includes in the work (as he did in the other Kahanis) additional narratives that can be best considered as lagniappe to those he remembered from his grandmothers, but more so his Aajee. A couple of these make use of the fable and may justifiably be labelled as fairy tales. Like the folk tales, fairy tales are also didactic in nature.

The degree of profundity (and the consequent easing of the degree of levity characteristic of the earlier books) is apparent in the pieces of personal reflections (fit really for a memoir) that are interlaced in this collection. It is a sobering Motilal, for instance, who uses the confessional mode in his reflections of the nine lives he seemed to have been blessed with.

This mode transfers easily into the three pieces with which the collection comes to a close. Here, Motilal, in a largely indirect way, acknowledges the influences on his writing style of three writers, two of whom (Al Ramsawak and Anthony Deyal) he interacted with on a professional as well as on a personal level. And I am sure, if the opportunity had presented itself, with the case of Samuel Selvon, it would not have been difficult for Motilal to be communicating in a similar way with this author whose works he was introduced to quite late in life.

Together the stories (the folk and fairy tales) and the personal reflections offer the reader interesting insights into the active mind of this septuagenarian. The collection is a blending of the oral and scribal traditions. After reading through these offerings, we are left to wonder what further work is in the offing.

‘Trees live long after we are gone.’ This is Motilal in a piece entitled ‘If Tomorrow Comes’ from Chatak Kahanis talking about some fruit trees he had planted and hoping that he will be remembered by his grandchildren after his ‘tomorrow has ended.’ It takes no stretch of the imagination to construe those words to mean that Motilal was talking not just about the trees he had planted.

As every now and then the reader encounters lines from Motilal like But that is another story and I will leave that for another time or, I will stop here today. I will continue this discourse another time, you can bet your bottom dollar that, before that tomorrow arrives, other Kahanis are bound to flow out of his pen!

- Krishna A. Samaroo

Divali, Ramleela and

the Ramayana

The months September and October are especially reverential for Hindus. In Trinidad we observe Ganesh Ustav, worship to Lord Ganesh, the remover of obstacles, Pitri Paksh, tribute to the ancestors and then the period of Nau Raatri when puja is done to the nine forms of Mother Durga, emphasizing the importance of womanhood in the Hindu Scriptures. For the year 2022, Divali Nagar celebrations began on October 15th, and ran until October 22nd, and the festival of Karthik came up later in that month.

Most of these events are referenced in the Ramayana which can be described as the source of Hinduism in Trinidad and the Caribbean.

Many villages throughout this land celebrate Ramleela in the build up to Divali. Ramleela is a dramatic open-air re-enactment by village folk of the Ramayana that takes place in various parks and recreation grounds. Some examples of excellent performances are by the groups, The Pandavas in Palmiste Park, The St John’s Ramleela group in Avocat Fyzabad and the Tarouba Ramleela group in Marabella. There are many more excellent productions, but having attended at these venues, I can attest to their cultural brilliance.

Divali is widely celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago with many festivities taking place in villages and towns. Special mention must be made of Divali Nagar in Chaguanas and the Divali Village of Felicity. Elsewhere, villagers light up their recreation grounds and stage performances about Divali. These are usually done in the week preceding Divali day which sees thousands of homes becoming illuminated with thousands of deyas.

The scenes in the Ramleela and Divali plays take me back to primary school at Suchit Trace Hindu, where Mr Ramroop Mahabir, an accomplished exponent of the Ramayana, was the principal then. I can remember to this day his teaching my class in 1962 this Chaupai depicting Lord Rama’s plea to mother Sita to remain at home while he proceeds to banishment in the forest for fourteen years.

We sang in Hindi:

Janaki Kishoree, Janaki,

Paan priye mama Pran,

Mai Banwas a too, jaata hoo,

Bachaan a Maa too Pituman.

Meaning: Oh, loving daughter of King Janak, who is dearer to me than life itself, I am going into exile in order to validate a promise made by my father.

Here Mr Ramroop reminded us:

Raghu Kulari a sa dawoo chale aaa eeee.

Pran a jayee para bach a nana jayee.

Jaya Rama etc.

Meaning: May I lose my life instead of breaking a promise.

The Chaupai continues as Rama outlines the many hardships that living in the forest would bring as opposed to remaining in the palace. He talks about the poverty and difficulties and the dangers from the wild animals living there. He even tries the guilt trip trick telling her that she will gain benefits from God if she stays at home and takes care of her mother and father-in-law. But Mother Sita who is sometimes seen as the first feminist, replies:

Prem Pujaran, hey Prabhu,

Kama kare yeh naan.

Pati kay taankay dookhu Sahai,

Patini rai dukkha paan.

Patini bina Pati ni gati aise,

Jal bina macharee kara batu jaise.

Emphasizing that a wife’s place is with her husband, and vice versa, saying a husband and wife separated from each other is like fish taken out of the water, luxury without companionship; and jewel ornaments become burdens to the body when one is separated from one’s love.

Her eloquent arguments persuade Rama to take her with him.

Another scene from the Ramayana that is seldom told or enacted but which I really love tells of the time that Hanuman and Lord Rama’s army was building a bridge from India to Lanka so they could get there and engage Rawan and his army in battle. Every day they would put stones and rocks into the sea going towards Lanka. The work is hard, and progress is slow, but little by little they are getting nearer to Lanka. One morning, Hanuman wakes up to