Mahade Das (1954-2003) was a pioneering Indo-Caribbean writer and activist from Guyana who defied categorization as a poet, dancer, actress, and beauty queen (Miss Diwali 1971). Her literary journey evolved from early nationalistic poetry supporting the PNC government and national service to later existentialist and postmodernist works exploring tormented existence, mythology, and the grotesque. Despite her significant contributions to Guyanese literature, she was denied her economics degree from the University of Guyana due to national service issues and never received national literary awards, though her work has been anthologized and her poem 'They Came in Ships' became the title of a major East Indian writing collection. Her life exemplifies the resilience and intellectual labor often carried by women in the diaspora, and her work should be included in Caribbean women's writers curricula at university level.
Mahadai Das (1954 - 2003): Writer and Activist of GuyanaAjouté :
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Welcome distinguished speakers, guests and friends. Namaste, assalamu alaikum and greetings to all of you. I am Ashley Sinan of Trinidad and Tobago, an independent researcher specializing in historical studies. I hold a bachelor's degree in history with a minor in literature from the University of the West Indies.
Before we start our program, I would just like to say happy Mother's Day to all moms, especially to those who have joined this program. We will play a song to serenate all mothers at the end of this program.
This is the 311th edition of our ICC thought leaders forum. We wish to sincerely thank all of you who have graciously contributed to the success of this ongoing panindo and pan Indian diaspora global project. For 310 unbroken continuous weeks we have been here every single Sunday. In the past 5 years, 6 months, and 3 weeks, we have featured 1,244 presenters speaking on 310 topics. We are pleased to have speakers and participants in this meeting from all parts of the world in different time zones. This weekly forum is being hosted by the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Center, a legally registered research and publishing company operating since 2010.
In order to improve this weekly program, we are asking for suggestions and volunteers. If you choose to give a donation, a suggest to sustain the program, Dr. Mahab should be contacted to provide details and will ensure that your name will be placed on our poster and all promotional materials.
Ladies and gentlemen, today I am pleased to introduce our moderator today who is Shalima Muhammad who is also the co-director of the ICC Zoo platform. She is a cultural and heritage consultant, business psychologist, teacher and researcher from right here in Trinidad and Tobago. Chaliba, welcome.
>> Thanks so much Ashley. Pleased to see you again. Asalamu alaikum everyone.
Namaste and a warm welcome to all of you here in the zoom room as well as those of you viewing the live stream on the YouTube channel of the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Center. We want to thank you very much for choosing to be here with us.
Over this past weekend, Trinidad and Tobago was very pleased to welcome India's Minister of External Affairs Dr. uh Subramanyan J Shanka. His visit was part of a larger Caribbean tour to strengthen India's partnerships in the Caribbean region.
We were very very pleased to hear from him just last night that Prime Minister Modi intends to establish a gitia research institute in India to help people trace their indentures ancestry.
So we look forward to that and um he had many other announcements which we will share with you in due course. So it's a privilege to welcome all of you all to today's presentation though and this one is on a very special woman Mahade Das.
She was a writer and activist from Guyana.
A little bit about her and um our inspiration for talking about her today.
Actually the topic was inspired by a post and a group chat by a Trinidadian community social worker and former journalist Bonu Dwaraka. Bonu wrote about Mahade Daz's activisms specifically about her being part of the small team that laid the foundation of the Indo-Caribbean Federation of North America at a meeting in 1985 at the office of Romesh Khalichan. was at Kali Realy on Hillside Avenue in Queens, New York. So, why are we talking about her today on Mother's Day?
Well, her story connects really to Mother's Day through several profound lenses and I'll just mention a few here.
Um, perhaps we can call her a model of Indo-Caribbean womanhood. You see, she redefined what was possible for women of her background. She was a beauty queen actually Miss Diwali in 1971 and an activist. Can we credit her with being a serious philosopher as well? She certainly had intellectual ambition. Her journey from Guyana to Colombia University and the University of Chicago represents the high value placed on education within the community from which she came.
She was a strong feminist voice. She was among the first to write about the double struggle of Indo-Caribbean women fighting for racial equality alongside men while simultaneously demanding gender equality from those same men.
Mahade does is an exceptionally worthy topic for an Indo-Caribbean Mother's Day discussion. Or so we thought because her life and work embody the resilience, cultural preservation and intellectual labor often carried by women in the diaspora and we hope to hear from our speakers a little more about that. I want to welcome first of all Dr. Vishnu Bisram from her homeland. He has helped to organize several conferences on the Indian diaspora in the Caribbean and has presented papers at these and other events and written numerous newspaper articles on the subject. No stranger to us. Welcome Dr. Bisam. You can go ahead with your presentation.
>> Oh well thank you. Thank you very much well for the warm introduction and and for the warm introduction of Mahadeas as well.
Um I don't know if I belong in this esteemed panel because I I I see first of all my my kudos to um the fellow panelists Mr. Kraton and and Pamba and I do want to acknowledge uh the hosts uh the moderator the organizers the planners for this uh wonderful program and it's uh it's beyond 3 years now so I just want to commend the the the um the host and the moderator for having this program it's a very very worthy u program that that is um badly and urgently needed in the in the Caribbean community and and in the diaspora the Indian diaspora as Well, I I want to also acknowledge as as as um you mentioned Shalima, we have Canada and and then Mr. Mutu and and other literary figures um with Kumar himself being an outstanding literary figure as well. So in that context, I don't know if I belong there or here because I myself am no literary um person. So I am speaking not as a literary analyst of uh the late Mahadas work but but in the context of which I hap happened to know and and met her. Now I never met the Mahade Das in Guyana um when I left Guyana in 1976 77 rather. I only met her um some almost a decade later in New York and it was all accidental as a result of Banu Darka whose name you mentioned. Now you mentioned um earlier it was um the name Ian Macdonald came out came about and Ian Macdonald no doubt is one of the finest literary critic uh in Diana. There is no Mahadai Das as the as the best gy poet after Martin uh Carter and and I many people would agree with that with that description of her.
She she she truly was a was an outstanding writer and a poet. So um let me focus uh my on on my encounters of Bahadas as a youngster growing up on the quarantine of Guyana and described aspects of her polit and her engagements in New York. The uh presentation here is largely anecdotal and and conversations we meaning Mahadeas and I had when she was in New York when I was studying at uh for the GCEO levels. Now, as we all know, there is no GCO levels or A levels anymore. We have now CXC and Cape. Well, I studied uh CXC at the current high school, also known as the JC Chandising School, High School and just just uh the same um they emerged out of Trinidad. That family came from Trinidad, settled in Guyana and JC Chandising opened a school in Port under quarantine. Um, so I just wanted to put that in context for us to know the connection between both Trinidad and and then British Guyana and Guyana today.
Now, Mahadeas made news for two reasons.
When I was in in high school, she was crowned Miss Diwali Queen as you rightly stated in November 1971.
She was amazingly smashingly beautiful and and she was merely 17 when she became Diwali Queen. Now Diwa Diwali beauty pageant was the event the beauty pageant for Indian Indians in Guyana.
They always felt they were marginalized culturally and discriminated against and as such this this beauty pageant um attracted more interest than in the national beauty pageant for the Indian community. every inali queen um whether there were Muslims, Hindus, Christians, they all contested for the title of Miss Diwali a beauty queen and and Mas won in 1971 at a mere 17 years old. At then she was very very deep into Indian culture into Hindu culture, Hinduism. She was close with the what what everyone in Guyana would have known at that time the Raj Mari Singh family who sponsored and supported her for the for the pageant. It was premier family in Guyana. Raj Mari was the daughter of the late Dr. Jong Bahadu Singh a medical doctor on on board um the ships that brought indentured laborers to Guyana. uh professor Ramarak wrote his biography. The Rajari family was connected to Forbes Burnham, a name not very well liked in Guyana as as people would know um because of the way he governed. Um and certainly he was not very well administration and that governed from 1957 to 1964 and that was in the opposition from 1964 to 1992.
Um the name itself evoked a lot of scorn and contempt and unfortunately Mahadas worked closely with Raj Mari Singh and the PNC government led by Forbes Parnham. Uh Mahalida's cultural activities were linked to performing at PNC functions and any Indian who collaborated with or tied with the PNC and Barnham would be blanked by other Indians because of the deep intense division of the society from 1957.
And one would say it persists till till this day. Um the the the PNC and for whatever >> you it appears that Dr. Bisam is having some technical issues perhaps with the internet.
>> Let's just have some patience with him please.
And he's talking from Japan I think.
>> Yes.
Yeah. Um is it coming across coming across clearly?
>> You're dropping from time to time unfortunately but please continue.
>> Okay. Now the Mahadeai politics got caught up in national service and for anyone who would like to know what national service is um national service was a kind of a mandated service uh particularly for uh students in Guyana at the time, high school students and university students as well as those uh people who work for the government.
mandated in the sense they had to serve a certain period of time in the government in order to retain their jobs or to um continue at the university level for high school. It was not absolutely mandated. But um when I was growing when I was in high school, I was I was warned that if I didn't serve national service, when it was time to travel abroad, I would be denied an exit clearance. So because of that reason I and many others u signed up for national service. I did in 1976. I paid the money. Unfortunately I decided that I will not serve. I joined others who opposed the project and um I lost my money. one had to pay certain amounts of money in order to um to to get the the the clothing and and the um the the the the footwear and other other materials one needed to be in the service. Um the Indian community objected to the national service and they requested that females be um exempted uh from the national service program but Bernham refused uh to yield on that aspect. So anyone who wishing to attend national ser uh wishing to attend university and to have a teaching job they had to serve in national service.
Now Mahade Das has revealed to me when she was in New York and and to others to Ravi Dev and to others that she when she served in national service she was raped. She un unfortunately she was one of the cheerleaders of national service when she was in Guyana University and um she became very very dejected disappointed uh when she served the national service and got and got raped. Um what exactly happened um between that period and until she migrated to New York, it was not very very clear. But my ne next encounter with n with uh with um midas would be in New York. Now just a little more national service. There were several individuals who reported about rape. We had one minister Rudy Lockach whose daughter was raped also at national service. He went into the national service where she was assigned fetched her out and the next day he bought he caught a flight. himself and his family all flew out to Canada never to return to Guyana again. So that just gives you some background of what was happening in Guyana for national service. Now Maharas used to lead um um organization rallies in Guyana in support of national service uh at the university. Now there are several friends who reported to me um when they were you know at the at UG that Mahadeas when they used to counter um the national service rallies they were beaten up by Mahadeas and others who uh were opposed to national service.
So obviously one would expect the the this this this whole idea of national service to have a a devastating effect a psychological effect on Mahadeas because she she led the this movement for national service only for herself to become a victim of national service. Now in New York I met N Mahade Dash through Ravidv and Banu Dwar as she rightly stated and um Mahade became one of the um the co-founders or or contributors to the launching of what we then would have the um Indo-Caribbean Federation of North America. It was called in those days of North America because we wanted to unite uh all the Indian organizations in in North America, Canada and the United States and I think now the name North America has been removed from it.
Now it again Banu correctly right um stated that that the Indoc Caribbean Federation was launched at the at the office of uh then Ramsh Kali Chaman who no longer is with is with us. Um Khali played significant role in not only the launching of the Indarian Federation but also in other in the launching of several other organizations.
Um this this concept of the federation um came out of the home by the way of Banu Bark. I don't think anyone uh previously acknowledged that that it was Banu, myself and Betam Ramat who met at Banu's home in Elmer and we um conceived this concept of a national federation and subsequent meetings took place with Rojanat and and Roy Prasad Gor well Gora Singh was also one of the original founders and Gora Singh was also very close with Mahadeas. In fact, I met Mahalas at the home of Gora Singh before I met her at Bahu's place. Um, Gora was living in Brooklyn then and then I think he shifted to Queens and his family is still in Queens today. So, I wanted to pay tribute to Maharas in that context in which she um she she was culturally active in in the Diwali um beauty pageant. She was politically active in advocating for national service and now I want to pay tribute to her as a scholar. I when I when I met uh Mahalidas in New York, she was uh looking for a job. She was attending Columbia University. I mean Colombia University is premier university in the in the United States. the equivalent of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and uh I at the time I thought she was doing a master's degree only subsequently unloaded that was a bachelor's degree but I don't know if she ever completed her bachelor's at LUG maybe Alan Alcrat and then Pamba can speak more about that but I do know she was attending um Colombia University and when I met her um through Ravi and Ban she she was looking for a job at the time I was elected president of the graduate students councelor at the City College of New York which was just about 2 miles away from uh Columbia University and I needed someone to run the office. So I um I asked her whether she was interested in working for uh for the city the the city university graduate student council and she agreed. I also indicated that it doesn't pay much. I can't remember the amount at the time was $50 or $60 a week and she agreed to to come and serve with us. uh a few hours a day around that time. Um Barack Obama, the name that you all are familiar with, used to also come at City UN City College um and and organized students. So both both just for the historical record, Maras and Barack Obama went to um Columbia University around the same time and both used to visit City College around the same time when I was graduate student president.
So, um, by the way, Barack Obama never held any elective position at any university except I think he served at Harvard Law Review when he was a student at Harvard, which was after he attended Colombia.
Um, and and Mahedas herself did not hold an elective position at Colombia or at City University, City College where I where I attended. Now, it was this um position that she held at City College with with me that I was able to to obtain from her various um various historical uh records, one could say, uh of about governance in Guyana uh and her experience with national service. um from moving from a cheerleader of national service to one of the individuals who really hated it because of her experience uh that she encountered while serving at national uh service. She subsequently became a member of the working people's alliance WPA uh which was founded by Walter Rodney Rupert Rupner Ryan and others um and and um I don't think she ever gravitated to the PPP the party of the late Cheddy Jagen um and again I want to give credit to Ravi Dev because Ravi Dev also founded the political movement in New York all of us were um participants of various organizations funders of organizations that sought to u lobby for the restoration of democracy in Guyana.
And Ravi's movement then was called the Guyana United Democratic Movement that that was founded in Queens by the way um just a block away from where Romesh Khalichan office is. So that that whole area um was was was known for its activism against um political oppression in Guyana as well as for cultural revivalism of the Indo-Caribbean community in in New York. Um Mahade Das and I also met several times at the City University of New York where I was doing PhD uh simultaneously at the graduate center which was on 42nd Street. So we had a lot of engagement. Um and and in that context is is how I found out so much that I didn't know when I was just a mere youngster. I left New York. I left Guyana when I was 16 years old to attend university in New York. So there there would not have been much that I was um I was familiar with other than reading in the newspapers. And so I became more more um knowledgeable of political activities in in Guyana, especially um at what took place at the University of Guyana. Um it was Mahade Das who revealed to me that many many Indian girls and and African girls were raped at national service. It was something that was acknowledged but not to the extent um that Mahas described. and and uh when I visited Guyana in 1981,8385 and in subsequent years I I met with um activists in Guyana, I met I was directed to to doctors uh Dr. Balwan Singh and another doctor both of whom um confirmed that they used to treat a lot of girls who were raped for pregnancies and um in in in Guyana. So in in in that is how I get to know Midas. And I just want to um to um commend her activism um not so much in promoting national service but of course in in opposing it subsequently um and also for her intellectual aptitude because she did write uh several articles for um uh magazines that we uh produced for Indo the Indo-Caribbean Federation. Banu herself was an outstanding writer at the time.
um probably still is. Uh she was she was indeed a very very strong woman, Mahadeas uh who withtood so much abuses at national service and by those who used her for their own selfish ends since there has never been an inquiry international service. I I think some some some should uh conduct a research international service. uh what whatever I reveal this this afternoon some of it has been published in the Guyana publications as well as in magazines. So I want to thank you all very much for this opportunity to talk about Mad Das in the context that I did and not so much as a literary analyst or critic. Um but certainly she was an outstanding uh literary figure and I believe her works should be used uh in in the curriculum of CXC and and that gave thank you very much for this opportunity.
Thank you so much. Very very informative and uh you gave us some information there that um I don't know that anybody else would have been able to do so on the panel that is but I know that we have for example Ravi Dave me um join in just when you called his name. So I was glad that he's here. I know that you have to leave us very soon because um you are traveling again. Um I so I don't want to delay you very much. I want to thank you very very much for that.
Thank you >> ladies and gentlemen. Um we will please ask you to hold your questions. You can probably place them in the group chat if you like and um we can always forward them to Dr. Bisram in the event we won't be able to get an answer from any of the other speakers. But please feel free to um pose your questions in the chat.
Thank you very much Dr. Bisram and safe travels.
Thank you. I'll try I'll try to stay on.
>> Oh, terrific. Thank you.
>> Well, if you can stay on, maybe we can take a few questions for you. I I certainly won't want the audience to be denied the opportunity to have you respond.
So, let's do that very quickly. Can we take two questions? If there's anyone who have burning questions, please just raise your electronic hand. will find those in the reaction button at the base of your screen.
And I will just I'm glad you made a comment Dr. Bisram about the fact that it was not just Indian women who were being raped um during that period of national service. Not that any woman should have been raped during national service. However, I um I really had a question in the back of my head if it was just the Indian women who were being victimized.
Um and to think that so much time has passed and there hasn't been an inquiry is unjust and um I think you are quite right in calling for that to take place.
Whether or not it will occur and to what extent the families will receive some kind of justice is to be seen I suppose.
I'm not seeing any raised hands.
So I think perhaps we will um ask everyone to again if they have questions that they would like to ask we will forward to you Dr. Visam. So thank you again.
>> Thank you >> ladies and gentlemen. Our second speaker is Mr. Al Kraton Jamaican born. He's the director of the Confucious Institute.
He's a public orator at the University of Guyana and secretary of the Guyana Prize for Literature and the director of the National School of Drama. There's a lot more we can say about him, but we'll have him present on Mahade Das. Welcome, Mr. Ka.
Can we unmute your mic, please?
Yeah, he has to unmute and um turn turn on his camera.
>> Yeah, I'm trying to >> and uh Navvin would show his PowerPoint.
>> Mr. Creature I think he may have left this Zoom room and is probably trying to rejoin.
>> Yeah, because I think he was unmuted but we still we still was getting his video.
Mhm. All right, we may have to go to PMA. Oh, he's coming back out. Let's see.
>> Let's just give him a second.
>> Yeah, >> Mr. Cton, try to unmute your mic, please. Have >> to make a cohost.
>> I did. Okay.
Okay, Ben, I'm sorry about that breaking transmission, but I'm trying to use my phone because I was having some problems with the with the laptop.
Can you hear me?
>> Yes, we are hearing you. We are seeing you.
>> Okay, then. Thank you very much. Now um I'm very honored to be a part of this panel and to be given the opportunity to speak on this subject.
Now um I find it a bit difficult to talk about the the work particularly the work of Ma of of Mahad Das within the uh 20 minutes period.
But don't be alarmed. Um I don't intend to exceed the time but I I am not going to try to say everything because there is quite a bit that can be said about her poetry in particular and the contribution that she has made.
Now, as you would have heard already, she was uh a poet, a dancer. She she was very active in in cultural events. She was a poet, a dancer, an actress, uh a Misty Misty Wally Queen, and a graduate in economics and philosophy. If we go to the next slide, please.
Please uh go to the next slide.
I am not going to deal too much on her biography.
Um because I'm sure that I'm sure that Platamba might very well go deep into that and we did hear some of it from from Vishnu. Um so therefore I am not going to go into great de detail on her on on her biography um except to point out one or two things and to make a comment about certain ironies.
Now, first of all, in terms of her university or university career, she did do a bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Guyana.
My information is however I had to be a little cautious about conclusions here because my information was that she what while she completed the degree she was denied it because of the national service issue. Now in when Guyana introduced the national service, it was compulsory for all university students.
All university students had to go and do one year in the national service and in many instances they were actually sent to work somewhere in the interior at one of the national service centers there.
Um the and I I said that I was going to comment on a few ironies. One of the ironies is that Mahaday Das did work with the national service before she entered the university.
And the understanding was that if you were a university student who had already served in the national service, then you would have been exempt.
And there were all kind of negotiations made about the length of time served and the length of time from which you may be exempted if you had already done work with the national service. As it happened, Mahadas was no stranger to the national service when she was a university student and and um therefore she did not have to go off like most other students to to do that one-year service.
the I'm going to speak a little bit more about that irony later on, but it was the very national service that was used against her when she came to the end of her studies in economics at at the university because my uh my information was that she was denied the degree by the government. The government intervened and the government would have prevented the university from granting a degree to anyone who defaulted on the national service requirement and that is what was used against Mahadas. There was a claim that she had defaulted on the national service requirement in spite of the fact that she had served and there were all kinds of quibbles about little details of things. But my understanding is that because of of of of that she was denied.
And the one of the things about the national service is that it was basically used as a weapon against nonsuporters of the PNC government at that time. and that if you were in the opposition camps, if you were an activist, if you were an opponent of the PNC, you would have met problems and victimizations within the national service. And by that time, Mahadai Das had been very closely associated with the WPA.
and the WPA was really very active and very effective at the time. I believe that they fell off very badly from that position after the death of Walter Rodney years after the death of Walter Rodney. The WPA was not the same and it has not been the same WPA as it was at that time. At that time the party was a real threat to the PNC government and particularly Walter Rodney under the leadership of Walter Rodney. Mahadas did work with the WPA.
I cannot say that she did not work with the PPP because she was fairly close with the PPP as well. But because of those connections, the government used those connections to according to the to the understanding the the agreement they had with the university to deny her the economics degree. Now after that I am a little hesitant about making that as a definitive definitive statement because I read elsewhere that she did post-graduate work at the University of Colombia. We heard Vishnu talk about her career at Colombia and it is still something that I have to confirm what degree she actually did at Colombia. um whether it whether it is that she did in fact receive the BSC from UG and then she went to Colombia to do uh post-graduate work. I am not going to to to speak definitively on that because of my previous understanding that she was denied the degree at the University of Guyana. So just wanted to talk about that in terms of her of her biography and the other parts about the ironies other ironies I will mention as we go along. The next slide please.
Now in terms of her place in Gy literature, I want to spend a bit more time on that because um she is regarded as having a place at the highest level in Gy literature particularly where Gy women poets are concerned as a female guy as a female poet in Guyana. She holds a place at the very top of that. Now um she contributed a lot to GY women's uh poetry. She contributed to the as as one of the foremost female poets in the country and as an Indian poet as well but it is very difficult to compartmentalize her. When you study her poetry and you study the history of her poetry, the development of her poetry, it becomes very difficult to compartmentalize her and I will spend a little a little bit more time in a few minutes talking about some of the details of that and what she was writing and why this compartmentalization becomes a little difficult. The next slide please.
Now, she she holds a place as one of the one of one of the foremost women poets of Guyana. And I can I can talk about some of the other outstanding female poets who hold that position at the top of the line where Gy women poets are concerned. uh poets like Grace Nicholls who has had an outstanding career as a poet and a fiction writer and who is one of Guyana's leading female poets and she holds a pl a a a place in that uh top bracket of Gy women poets. Another I can name another I can name is I'm very sorry but I'm trying to see the Yes, I'm trying to see the this slide and um Okay, another would be Janet Naidu. Janet Naidu is known as a leading a leading female poet of Guyana and I could make reference to her as well and her work.
And another to whom I can refer is Ellie Neland.
Ellie Neland who is a prize-winning poet, a prize-winning gy poet like uh like Grace Nicholls. And those three I can I can single out as one of the top level female poets of Guyana along with Mahade Das. I'm not going to attempt to rank them just to say that that is the place in which Mahade Mahadeas belongs. when we are looking at gy poetry and women poets of Guyana when we come to when we come to other things about about the kind of poetry that they wrote what they focused on and and and so on we will come to a little bit more information about Madas because Grace Nichols very heavily feminist and known for that for the for that feminist approach in her work She also works a lot with children's uh literature and and so she covers quite a range of of studies in g literature.
Janet Naidu does have a number of Indian poems, poems that that focus on that what we what we can call G East Indian literature but she also has a wide range of other poets. I can say the same about Ellie Nand who is not who is not known as primarily a gy Indian poet because Ellie Nand has covered again a a very wide range of subjects and I can also say the same thing about Mahade Das. While Mahade Das has work that is very important in gy East Indian literature when you come particularly when you come to some of her more political poetry and her later work you're going to find that she had a number of other interests. Next slide please.
Now here we come to some of the other gy poets of note that that that I can name.
Um poets like poets like Paloma Muhammad and like well I I already spoke of Janet Naidu, Shana Yardan, Milling Jin, Ruth Osman and Makita Bratweight.
Some of these um have been longstanding established poets of of of of Guyana. The two last named are some of the newest some of the newest uh developers like uh Ruth Osman who recently won the Guyana Prize for the best first book of poetry and Makita Bratweight who was also singled out as one of the outstanding newcomers in Gy uh one of the outstanding newcomers in Gy poetry. so that I can single out those names when talking about gy poetry. Now when we come to East Indian literature and I go to the next slide please. When we come to East Indian literature Mahadas features there foremost among the writers the East Indian the East Indian poets the well-known East Indian poets of Guyana would be Raj Kumari Singh along with Janet Naidu and Mahade Das. Now Raj Kumari Singh holds a very premier position here because she's one of the pioneers.
Um she comes from a family that was very much steeped in culture in Gy culture.
Her parents were the leaders of the British Guyana Dramatic Society and Raj Kumari Singh is a daughter of that family um of uh the the the the Singh family who were the leaders of that of that cultural group and Raj Kumari Singh was was a daughter of that family and she became a leading force in Gy East Indian poetry. And here again we come to one of the ironies because not only was she foremost in Gy East Indian poetry writing poems about indenturship, poems about postindenturship and the Indian experience and so on. Raj Kumari Singh was also the leader of one of the cultural groups under the PNC and in national service. Raj Kumar Singh was was concerned with national service. She was concerned with a group known as the people's culture core and she her work was much steeped in nationalism. Now I'm going into some detail about Raj Kumari Singh because Mahadeas was a student of Raj Kumari Singh. She was a protag of Raj Kumari Singh and she in her apprentichip years I read about her work at Bishop's high school where she went.
Bishop's high school that was one of the was in fact the leading secondary school for girls in Guyana at the time 1960s into the into the the 1970s before it became co-ed and so on. Maharas attended Bishop's High School. I've never seen any I don't know of any of the work that she wrote while she was a student there, but I've been reading about it.
Um, but she served an apprenticehip with Raj Kumari Singh and Gora Singh and in the Guyana National Service Movements.
So that again we come to the irony I was talking about because both Tajkumari Singh and Mah and Mahade Das worked very closely with the PNC in those years and with the national service and quite a bit a bit of the work that they did there was helping to promote the culture the cultural aspects of the national service and helping to promote it as a viable institution.
Now the national service of course fell into disrepute. We heard a lot about it from Vishnu. Um perhaps September might be able to tell us some more but I am focusing on it largely because of the role it played because of the role it played in the poetry of of of Mahadas and the importance of it and the importance of the various things on which she on which she focused.
Now um the here again we come to the poetry we are dealing with the poetry of Mahadas and perhaps I need to move to the next slide.
Um well I have been talking a bit about Raj Kumari Singh here and her connection with Mahade Das. I can move to the next slide because we can look at this as her connection and the kinds of poetry that she wrote.
Now her her earliest work her earliest work was very nationalistic.
She some of her best known work had to do with East Indian poetry and had to do with postc colonial poetry as well as with feminist feminist approaches and feminism. But I think that her best poetry and her most important poetry came in her later work quite a postmodernist. She was quite an existentialist and I am going to go in a little bit more detail about uh some of the work that she did there. Let's take a look now at her published collections and what we can say about them.
Next slide please. Yes, in her published collections the first was I want to be a poetist of my people 1976.
My finest steel will grow 1982.
People tree press published bones in 1989 and People Tree also published a collection of her work postumously a leaf in his ear in night in 2010.
And I want to take a look at at some of the poems and some of the the the the poetry that we can focus on because because from what I've been reading there seems not to be a very uh clear understanding of the kind of work that she was turning out and the the history and the development of it.
Now I have read comments and criticisms of some of these poems which do not seem to me to align with what I can delineate as her development in poetry. When you come to I want to be a poetist of my people in that work she was very nationalistic.
She was a voice for the national movement. She was a voice for the the the national service itself. It not not not necessarily mentioning and and and advertising national service but the same kind of principles that the national service claimed to be promoting. We found reflections of this in the poetry of Badas at that time. the whole thing about revolution, the whole thing about about um uh putting forward nationalism. She wrote about the rivers and the landscape of the interior and so on. Much of which reflects on her work in the national service and in the interior of the country. And what I what I'm saying is that it is very ironic that some of the very things that she supported and supported it in her poetry were used against her and she became a victim of it as Vishnu uh already pointed out. But when you look at I want to be a poetist of my people or very early poetry that is the main thing that you're going to find. Let's take a poem like militant.
In a poem like militant, readers of that poem who I have read seems to be putting it forward as a poem which wi which radiates her militancy, her political position, her stance, her militancy and her cry for justice and her cry for revolution and so on.
I would I would not be so positive about that because I believe that a poem like Militant was more promoting the kind of revolution and the kind of socialism that was a part of the movement of the national service movement a part of the PNC of that time.
And she has another poem called the day of revolution.
Um the day of revolution. I trying to remember whether this one was from poetus of my people or whe it was from my finest steel will grow. But again the day of revolution there is the same thing as militant I believe where the the the promotion there was not about the kind of the kind of revolutionary movement that started with the WPA or with the PPP or the kind of of of of antiC movement that developed in the late 1970s.
It might the the day of re of revolution might more belong with her earlier her earliest kind of work. When we come to a poem I have a poem listed there me and Meldda which basically talks about which shows the range of Mahadas. I put it there just to show the range because she could be humorous. she could go into humor and this poem me and Meldda is one of the poems that she wrote in Creole using the Creole language. I don't want to give the impression that the Creole language it is only suited for humor or this kind of thing because clearly it is not. But it just so happens that the poem I have here which is trying to show her range is a po is a poem that also shows her humorous side.
Now when we come to a poem like um they or before I talk about they came in ships I just want to conclude with my finest steel will grow.
One of the things that you find about my finest steel will grow is that by this time she was beginning to part ways or she had already parted ways with the national service and the PNC movement and so on. She had already parted ways with them in the middle 1970s.
But what I find is that generally in gy literature, most of the writers who who satarized or who criticized the Burnham era did not begin to do so until a decade later in the 1980s or 1990s or they did not begin to do so until they had migrated and they wrote from exile.
And I suppose one can understand that because you couldn't you couldn't be a dissonant voice in Guyana and escape victimization or escape even violence. And so many writers waited until they were safely outside before they did it. Um, one of these writers was Searin Prasad who wrote about the 1970s but they they I I don't want to go into detail about Saran Prasad's poetry but he was one of them. Now when we come to a poem like they came in ships by Madas, this is one of poems that actually deals with and the echelon of East Indian Chinese literatur to to give you a detailed critical shapes or in fact of because of time but one of our major feminist works works in terms of gym like for Walter Rodney they too I want to say that in terms of her published work, this is where one began to see Mahadas learning learning and a poetry of outstanding quality. the kind of poetry for which she is praised and the kind of poetry which I don't think has received as much attention as her earlier work and also has as as much understanding of some of her earlier work. I had said that in reading some of the criticisms I did not get the impression that the critics who were talking about her then fully understood the line of development and the history of her poetry. If you look at for Walter Rodney, you will find her learning this craft, beginning to develop the kind of fine quality that that that you find in the in in the collections, bones and a leaf in his ear.
I I read Ian Macdonald who said that he was told that some of the poems that appear in a leaf in his ear, some of them appear in bones as well. Mahadas wrote them between 1973 and uh and 19 80 1973 and 19 94 according to Ian I am not sure I don't have the information at to the exact dates when those poems were written but the poems that Ian Macdonald highlighted belong to her later development or later phase of development. It does not belong to her earlier phase in the 1970s or even in the early 1980s when while she was writing about while she was writing revolutionary poetry and while she was writing against the dictator the dictatorial regime of the 1970s and 80s. She never named She never named the enemy and she never came outright with with some of it as say Ryan Prasad did. She wrote the revolutionary type poetry without actually naming the enemy and which which happened in my finest steel will grow. When we come to other poems like bones and a leaf here and and so on, we see the kind of poetry that I want to say is her major work. There is a poem whose title I did not write down but is a poem in which she is addressing East Indian women in Guyana pointing to the atrocities that metered out against them in history and in indentureship and postindentship and so on and saying to them not to dwell on those past atrocities but look forward to future development and look forward to their contribution to the present and to the future. That is a poem that was very easily understood by the critics of Mahade Das much more easily understood than the poems that she turned out in bones and leaf his ear. There are poems which point to her major preoccupation in her later years which somehow reflected a tormented existence.
She began to write like this during her stay in the United States. We got much of this poetry coming out of her stay in the USA and after she returned to Guyana. after her return to Guyana, she did she was not very prolific as a poet, but we we get those poems that she began to craft in the USA and after and I say craft because these are poems that are excellently crafted. These are poems which show her at her best and she was very preoccupied with a tormented existence and with the unreal. Mahadeas went very much into myth a leaf in his ear which shows her as a postmodernist and as as an existentialist.
She dealt with mythology. She also went into a kind of anti- mythology where she was using the mythology and the kind of fantastic the the many myths are fantasies but there are fantasies which tell a truth and Mahade went into the fantasies dragons and and and and the grotesque and unreal things and so on while talking about existentialism while talk while talking about the the the about existence and about the kind of difficulty in understanding existence and the difficulty in understanding many things about it that she that she wrote about in these poems where you find the grotesque and you find mythology. to find all these unreal things which into which she retreats in order to talk about the present existence and the torment. We come to a poem a poem like learner it from where she does go into this postmodernism and the grotesque and the mates where in in learner we get a focus on nature. She talks about creation.
She makes references to the Christian creation myths. She makes references to a monster devouring nature which basically goes into some of the destructive elements that that we find in in in much of the mythology and much of the misrepresentations of life.
a lot of the grotesque, a lot of of of the unraised poems. She mentions the Chinese dragon, but the Chinese dragon is not an evil monster in Chinese mythology. Um, she mentions the Chinese monster. Sorry.
She mentions the Chinese dragon in counterposition in count in in in counterbalance with some of these mon monstrous cre creatures to which she refers in these poems. Paradoxes there are many paradoxes in her work. She mentions mother kali. Mother Kali has a particular sacred place in Hindu in Hinduism and yet the the the the actual features of mother of mother Kali are sometimes fierce. So we get that those kind of paradoxes that Madas touches on.
I just want to mention one one last poem um return to the fire and return to the fire where she is she's referring to cremation but she's also referring to the fire as lifegiving.
She's referring to the fire as as a as a life force.
Return to the fire is a poem of regeneration and a poem that goes against the prevailing torment, the prevailing tormented life with which she is preoccupied in many of these poems. The next slide please, because here is where I can go on forever about the qualities of um Mahadasi's poems. Could you please go back to major ironies because that's where I would want to end.
Major ironies. Yeah. Um again I just want to pinpoint some of the major ironies to which I have already referred. The compartmentalization the fact that when you read some of the critics they compartmentalize her which is very difficult to do. I find it hard to do that. Um I want to give credit to critics like Rosalene Bakus, Denise Deeris, Nar Ryan Gora and Rajie Rajie. I have a very very often have a little difficulty remembering his second name. Moab I think Rajiv Moaber and and and so in reference but but but I also see some misunderstandings.
One of the critics refer to Kimia when Mahab Mahadeas refers to Kimia in the poetry and the the critic did not seem to understand that she was talking about the national service because Kimia was one of the interior centers of the Guyana National Service and many of the students who went to serve their one year went to Kimia. They were sent to Kimia. Mahad Das was at Kimia and she makes reference to it in the poem which I don't think the critics fully grasped the confusion of the revolutions and there is a great irony one time she was a part of it and then she discovered that she had to oppose it and in opposing it she was victimized.
We get the the kind of resistance poetry that she wrote wrote. But I already pointed out something one of the characteristics of that book of that collection. And I want to end by saying that the poetry, her best poetry and her most meaningful verses can be found in two collections, bones and a leaf in his ear. And perhaps if you really want to study Mahadada, you need to look at a leaf in his air which takes selections from right across her career even going back to her to her early 1970s.
Thank you very much for allowing me to speak on Mahade. Please forgive me.
Might have overstayed my time but want to acknowledge the assistance from Ayana Wadell who was very helpful to me in the preparation of this PowerPoint.
Thank you very much.
>> Thank you very much Mr. Kraton. Um, I should have alerted you that you went over by about 15 minutes, but you know what?
You were on a path that I think I think kept opening up new uh lens, I think, to her work and her state of mind, I think.
And the story just kept getting more fascinating. And so, I just said, "Okay, let's go. I know PMA is going to come in now." and he's going to add to what you've said. So I don't think we are going to lose or or there's going to be any disconnect. So to members I want to thank you very much Mr. Catton and I'll ask that the members of the audience please just hold your questions until after Mr. Pasad um makes his presentation and then we'll just address each question to the speakers as is required. Thank you very much Mr. Ken.
Let me bring in Mr. PMA Prasad, our good friend from Guyana, who is a literary activist and author of the books titled Gyan Writers of Indian Ancestry and the Balgabin Saga. He also hosts a longunning television program titled Oral Tradition, now in its 24th year.
Welcome.
>> Unmute.
You have to unmute.
Right.
>> Okay.
Thank you. Shimo and Nin will show his poweroint.
>> Right now I have a difficult position coming after Al and Vishnu. I've got to look or seek a middle ground. But the the PowerPoint will show that um uh I've done my work well. Thanks to Vishnu and Al. We had a wonderful um conversation.
Now I haven't labeled this presentation because I want you to take a look of this this this picture this photograph.
I want you to see Mahadai rising out of the calm water.
Resurrection, reincarnation, the beauty of it all.
And then if you look closely, you'll see she is nearer to the left of the photograph.
So I was wondering if that was deliberate, if she was left wing in her ideas or it just happened by design. Let's go to the next slide, please.
When people share their memories of Mahadas, they speak of her beauty, her creative spark, her love for the stage, dancing, acting, her intelligence, her energy, her courage, and her passion for life.
And I said this after before the two presenters. I hope that this panel can bring new offerings, new perspective on DAS and that's exactly what has happened. Both Vishnu and Al has brought out some new things that will keep the conversation on DAS going on and on. Um very often time we talk about DAS and all we get is a regretation of biographical details. I would not go into that as Al alluded to because I think it being overused.
Next slide.
What's in the name? I'm going to the basic now. Very basic. Maha what's in the name Maha as you know in Hindi is great big ultimate whatever D is a wet nurse so I came up with Mahas Mahadai Das Mahai oh dear Mahadai the ultimate wet nurse of gy literature as a pioneer she was encouraging or she's been an example or inspiration for emerging writers that came and there were quite a few writers that came after her and addressed some of those issues.
In fact, she was in a number of groups um with names that we know names like uh uh Janet Naidu already mentioned by Alal Monari Singh and quite a few others.
Next slide.
basic again what's in a name millisent it was a call name we all seem to have call name Paul false name what do you say she used to be called milliseent and millissent means the strong in work and we found out that she was strong in her work despite a number of challenges she faced um family, the national service, um the society, the patriarchal society.
She was strong in her work. I don't know how she got that tall name, but I just discovered that there was a dame who was also named Millissent who was an English political activist and writer.
Next slide.
This is important.
I have never met my high das.
Although we are compatriots orbiting in the same circles but never aligning. She was Scorpio and I Gemini.
This is a welcome aside. Scorpio is a water sign known for being passionate, intense, uh magnetic and intuitive.
Uh this will be coming useful later in the discourse.
We publish our first collections in 1976 bearing some similarities.
Mine was not a so subtle political commentary while dasis was more direct.
Despite the above, we never met. Our first collection was titled I want to be a voyage of my people while mine was labeled from utopia to paradise a collection of political thoughts.
Um similar sentiments in both collections.
Next slide.
Next slide up nin.
And there you have the covers of the two collections.
And uh marking 50th anniversary. Wow, that's nice. Tambber from Utopia to paradise 50th years. And I want to be a part of my people 50th anniversary. Also this was done by well her anthology was done by National History and Arts Council.
Um the same time I was doing creative writing at the National History and Arts Council under the the tutilage of uh Shik Sadi and AJ Seymour but her name never came up during our discussion.
Next slide.
I never met Mahadai Das but then I never met William Shakespeare and I know a lot about Shakespeare. In fact I know more of Shakespeare than that of Das not a criticism.
Next slide.
Um I concur with Al that categories can be misleading.
It is difficult to put Mahadas in a category.
What was she?
a woman writer, writer in exile, Indo writer, pioneer, Caribbean, feminist, political idolist or what? What was she?
It is very difficult in my opinion to put her into a category.
And like Al, I I I've read a whole lot of um criticism where people had already placed her in categories.
Thank you. Next slide.
So if you can't, it is dangerous to put writers or artists or creatives in categories. Let me find another way around this.
Philosophy, this is a quotation I took from the philosophy is the rational systemic study of fundamental questions concerning existence, knowledge, ethics, reason, and mind.
It utilizes critical analysis, logic, and argumentation to understand reality, truth, and the human experience.
Major branches include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and logic.
While I'm going through that, I keep seeing uh dust in each word, you know, systemic study, fundamental question concerning existence, ethics, reason, logic, uh human experience, metaphysics.
Yes.
So although I'm not putting her in a category, I will focus on the philosophical side of Mahabai Das. Next slide, please.
It is my contention now that Das knew what she wanted out of life.
She knew where she was headed and she approached her objectives with determination.
It would be useful to be reminded that her mother died when Das was 17. Straddling Das with the responsibility of mining.
mining with word inverted Thomas her nine siblings while she was attending the top of girls school at bishops.
These are all influences on her life the mining of her siblings attending an all girl school um which kind of align with my story. My mother died when I was 11 and I was sort of uh doing all the house work, cooking, washing, ironing, looking after my siblings.
So I can sort of relate to the firstborn going through such challenges.
That's knew what she was aiming.
Bishops, University of Bayana, Columbia University, Chicago University. That's how it played out in her case. But the names of tertiary institution could have changed accordingly.
But that's how it went with her.
Next slide, please.
Now let's look at her publications to show uh my mute that she knew what she wanted out of life.
The first collection I want to be a poet of my people 1976.
My final steel will grow 1982.
Bones 1988.
Um yes we can include the leaf in his air selected poems 2010 because it um although it was published postumously now you can see the progression as Al alluded to the progression of the writer the growth of the writer we moved from I want to be a pess my final steel and then bones.
Well, leaf captures some of the newer poems and well selected poems uh selections made from the previous uh collections.
But you can see her progress as a writer. She was always moving upwards onwards, learning as she goes. Um Alice said you can see a distinct movement in the crafting of poetry in the latter poems.
Next slide please.
I will make brief comments on the first and the last collections. In her first collection, Das was in full flow of her choice of study, philosophy.
The long titles of these poems were like thesis on which he expounded.
One example, does anyone hear the song of the river bending its way through the jungle?
That's a long title for a poem. And I said, "It's like a thesis."
Does anyone hear the song of the river when its way through the jungle? Huh?
In the final collection, which was published.
I wrote this in the Sunday Chronicle of 2006.
A leaf in his air was published to celebrate a remarkable life.
A project started with a poet before her death discussing the publication with Jeremy pointing of people she press and in cooperate with one of her sisters.
Selected poems remain effectively Mahadai Das for she left instructions on what the book must portray. A map of her struggles, her shortcomings and her triumphs of her use of literature to lobby the cause of the marginalized, the subjugated and the disempowered.
So there we have it. It's something to go along with my my mood.
A leaf in his ear was like a flea in one ear.
Something nagging at you all the time.
Her poetry was like that.
Nagging, telling you something over and over. If you care to listen.
Whoever has ear let them hear.
Sansa Allen Poverty Pad Edwards Lumar Sain Rupal Monar Janet Naidu F Ivon Jackson Alfreda December those whoever has ears let them hear a leaf in his ear a flea in one's ear next slide My first article on DAS was published uh February 16, 2005.
That's a long time ago. That's 21 years ago.
It was published in the Sunday chronicle under the heading preserving our literary heritage. Yeah, I have a long background also as a columnist in the dailies.
Mahadas 1954 2003 and this is what I wrote.
But her bones will continue to jangle and sing their buoyant images of resurrection.
Remember the first photograph of her and for my final steel will grow because I want to be a poet of my people.
Death could not silence her. A voice exploring debilitating ethnic and gender issues.
A voice coming to grips with identities, gy consciousness and engineability.
But more importantly, a voice of anticipation and hope.
Such was essentially volatile life of Mahabai Das.
Thank you. Next slide.
In closing, I maintain that D knew what she wanted in life and I'll cite the poem that she wrote to Anna Corinia.
Did some research and I discovered that there is a principle. The Anna Karenia principle states that for a complex endeavor to succeed, all key factors must be present.
While the absence of even one factor leads to failure. This is Mahadas. She knows she knows where she's going. She knows what she wants. There were challenges.
Of course, there were challenges. the challenges that she overcame challenges that she overcame but essentially what I'm saying she knew what she wanted next slide what shall we tell Mahadas yes what shall we tell Mahadas next slide tribute to our female literary ancestors.
I looked around and remember our loved ones who were called home and wondered what shall we tell them?
What shall we tell Rajkumari Singh per AI?
What you have envvisaged then is not the same now.
Days of the are over or should be.
What shall we tell Mahadas?
Yes, they came in ships and are still sailing into the second and third migration.
My grandmother worked in the field.
Honorable mention.
Creole gang child labor second prize.
What shall we tell Latchmi Khalichan?
You will be happy to know that the gungru still sing for you and for I of our travails and our victories.
That's like what shall we tell Shana Yardan?
Sometimes I think my blood is made up of red, white and blue carpasses.
The blue ones flow through my pen and tell what is in my soul.
Yes, we are still writing of those issues.
Oh grandfather, my grandfather, your doy is become a shrug. Your straight hair a curse.
What shall we tell the gaffur?
That your lantern is still swinging in the wind, sharing knowledge you accumulated over the years.
What shall we tell Getty Lewis?
that another writer has finished what you had started in grassroots people one two and three.
What lessons are there for us in the about stories?
Next slide.
I mourn on flowered words on born children inside me.
Absent water can has never lent itself to flowers.
Reading those words brings to mind Harris in the bone and flute little holds up and this uh Gothic description of life.
Once again I mourn on flower word.
Oops.
Thank you. I see hands up already. So, Salimma, thank you very much. And back to you, >> that you are a literary authority is quite evident in your presentation.
>> Oh, thank you.
>> Most enlightening and the style in which it was delivered is incomparable. Thank you.
>> Oh my. Oh my. Invite me more often.
>> We'll do.
>> We have Mr. Henry Mu who wanted to add to your presentation and I think the topic. Mr. Mu, go ahead please.
>> Hi. Uh, >> hi Henry.
>> Good afternoon. Hey. Hey. Um, just wanted to say thank you to all of the um all of the presenters. Uh, beautiful job done. I wanted to add a little bit uh in the backstory because much of what has been said uh quite apart from some of the experiences of Mahadai after she left national service um it it's fine you can research that but there are stuff that you can't research that's not written down and um and this is where I wanted to add a little bit um one of the things there are two things I want to say one even if you put this in a positive light. I I consider Mahalai one of the great tragic heroes of literature in Guyana. Um she she went through quite a lot when she started which this group has not been mentioned but I'm sure that the time did not permit people. There was a group called the messenger group which Rajkumari Singh started around 197172 at her home in Lamaha street um the same home that I think Al mentioned it the home of her her father and mother Dr. Jung Bahadur Singh and she collected quite a few of us who I mean I am I am my father's side is Indian my mother's side is Portuguese but I always did a lot of um work uh uh in the theater which I was doing at the time um in in um in Indian stuff and the the people that were there at the time when Raj started this group was myself halal Munar um Gushka Gora Singh of course and and Raj Kumari's daughter and Mahadi came in I think just on the cusp of the beginning or maybe just shortly after she was about 17 as was said and I remember us getting her ready and dressing her and being excited about sending her up um for Deiwali Miss Diwali and when she won everybody was excited. I think that what what has to be mentioned is that if you look at Mahada's work, I I I don't I'm not a literary scholar in the same way perhaps that all these guys are. Um but but if you look at her work very closely and you look at the the chronology of her work and the development of her as a poet, you will see that a lot of her work has to do with that beginning with the messenger group because the the essential thrust of the messenger group was to look at Rajari Singh felt that Indian um reenactments or enactments and reenact enactments were kind of dying and being perhaps not even dying but being subsumed in a culture which was which had small amount or a larger amount but appeared smaller because particularly of the of the inner cities and so on. I was not particularly interested in any one ethnicity or any one race. My particular interest was in Guyana. And I think I'd like to say that this is what Mahadi thought that what she wanted to do. But I want to use the strong word. I think she was lwed like many of us um who who were lured into the beginning of national service. And again when when national service started we as part of the messenger group we got the news one day that Raj um or auntie Raj as she was called uh was she was appointed a captain to the rank of captain in the national service and she had a little office I remember on on on region street at border where close to just opposite border market and um I remember her with her you know her three crowns or whatever it whatever the thing it was. And it was quite interesting for us. And then she shortly after she asked us if we would like she didn't well she said she said that she they wanted to get um you know people who were interested in Guyana, the development of Guyana and that we should um we would go and train uh to be cultural uh h people who would teach culture to the country and so on. And of course being young we all were well I I was quite I was about five six years older than Mahade. Um and we were excited cuz we thought that we would be you know and she said you would get you start at the rank of of um of officer s of second lieutenant and this was like a huge thing to us. So we thought we'd go and so myself, Gushka and Monar joined um well not joined, we didn't sign anything. We were we said we were joined and we were taken up to uh Sue which was the first national service camp where officers were being trained, right? um the the officers that would then go into the service like exactly what happened with Mahade after but but within a few days we were all very very conscious of what was happening and what the thrust was. I won't go into all the detail but um but on the third day we all informed um them that we were we were we were leaving. We didn't want to stay and people were trying to get us to sign because once you signed then you you would have been bound that you signed something and we refused to sign and then there was a big bruhaha and then they didn't even want to take us down out of the camp out of camp Kauka. This was in Suzai. So, so I was there and I know that situation and I'm saying this because I think that what happened afterwards is that that Mahadai went into national service and I don't want to accuse anybody but I think she went in because she she was kind of you know she loved the people that she was with and she wanted to be helpful. She wanted to be part of it and she went in fully because she was in a sense a kind of a nationalist if you wanted and and the promise of national service which in principle is a wonderful thing. I mean everybody should do national service but not become a soldier and this is exactly what I told them when I was leaving. I'm not a soldier. I'm not interested in in the army. I'm not interested in being a soldier. I would be happy to teach culture and teach the arts and faith and so on. But I so we left and then um shortly after that I I left Guyana but Mahadi was was involved in poetry. Um I used to perform a lot of Indian stuff written by Rupal Monar and you know the dialect poem that that Mahalai wrote I can't ascribe it to that influence of Monar but she was open to to influences of Rupl Mona because we were all there and that should be researched um because Monal Monar wrote um um um particularly in dialect almost all of his novels are written in full sort of Indian type um nuance the dialect. So I just wanted to say that she she should be looked at in in in those terms that I think that in a way her first period was misleading. I was interested in in and some of us were interested in quality. And I think what happened is that when you get to national service, if those of you who have seen those performances of stage like on stage like I did, um they were they were lacking any kind of quality and good theater uh which which which I abhor. Um but then I lost contact with her of course when I left uh um uh Guyana and um I only met her once again after she was she came to London with Alfredo Bismbbo who and we were all good friends you know at the time so I just wanted to add that little bit that she should be studied in the context of her work in the messengers group because I think that that's all this thing about the nationalism and so on which I can't say that she didn't had some of it before. But I believe that where she embied a lot of this idea of nationalist sentiments of being gy regardless of race or whatever. I think although the the group was was focused on Indian things, I mean many of us wanted to to write and to paint and to draw and to do theater that encompassed all of of Guyana. And I I was from Alboytown which is a which is essentially an African gy area with with many other with many Indians on one side of the of the if those who know Guyana and what we used to call Pontrance Dam and then you had Portuguese Indians and all that living in a sense in one space. So my my my cultural sensibilities were slightly different from people like Raj who was particularly interested in the history of of the Indian Indian elements and while I was interested in that obviously um and I wanted to promote it I wanted to promote the whole of Guyana. So, so I would I would study Mahada if I mean I like I'm in I'm more into the theater and arts and culture but if I was to do a study it would be looking very closely and interviewing the people. Now unfortunately Monara has gone, Gushka has gone. Gora has gone. Um but Raj's children are still living in Queens and and I know that some of them were in national service. I believe Veruna or one of the other guys. I'm not too sure how many of them were, but some of them are still there. So, we should probably look strongly at that element. I also know that she knew Martin Carter and and would have had conversations perhaps with Martin. So, look at her work in terms of that and and Martin and Shauna Yardan were they knew each other well because Shana lived close to Martin.
Martin m she lived down at the backyard in in light street. So, all of these things come together. If you look at that period then I think her work would open up um not different but similar to what a lot of people have said because a lot of terrific research has been done but some of the personal detail which which have not been published might be quite instructive when we're looking at her work and assessing her work. I mean I personally think that like I agree that her last two um uh publications were fine. I I think that the the the national service pieces were were quite bad to tell you the truth and that's because of the way I viewed what it was being used for. Not bad in itself in and of itself, but but bad because it was being used as a as a tool to be able to entrench a certain type of thinking and thought in the in in in G history and culture. So that's all I have to say.
Thank you very much for sharing this.
Now, Mr. Mu, thank you very much. A very significant contribution. Um, we really appreciate your perspective because you've had lived experience with her and um I can imagine how hearing about her life without or or or rather her work without looking at it in the context of her life experiences in the early days as you've opened up to us. um must have brought you to share. So I want to thank you very much for doing that.
We have Miss Janet Naidu, the Janet Naidu with us and I would like her to um please unmute her mic and share with us.
>> Jonathan, I do please.
>> Are you seeing her?
Yes, she's in the she's in the audience.
>> Oh, okay. Okay, I see her. You can turn on your video, too, if you wish, Janet.
>> Um, hold on.
>> Yep.
>> Thank you very much. I'm delighted to attend this uh you know session honoring Mahade um as a writer and activist of Guyana and appreciate all that have been expressed by everyone who presented. Um I'd like to share uh with you um I wrote actually wrote it um just to ease of time so I don't have to rack my brains about everything but I'll I'll read from it. Um Mahade and I first met in 1971 at the home of Raj Kumari Singh and at the time there was a group of writers dramatists including Henry Mutu um poets um Rupl Monar and Alfreda BMBmber as well Mahade also was there but at that time um Mahade wasn't really writing she was Rajkumari encouraged her to enter the uh Miss Dwali contest And I used to accompany uh Mahade to the Maha Sabah so she can practice walking in her sari in a sari and she's from East Bankara where I'm from too. I'm from Coven Garden and Mad from Gro um Craig. So she had to pass my way to go to Georgetown. So we would meet up from time to time. Um um during this period um Raj Kamari was coordinating stage performances drama and Henry was involved in it. As a matter of fact um there's a long poem by Rupl Monar called Moon Gaza and it was actually staged and some of the voices included Mahadei and um Henry Mutu and as well as Rajkumari Singh and others.
So there was that element of dramatic um cultural exposure that Mahadei had um before she started writing and um Rajkamari um she was mentoring the group. I I used to go to the house I was like a a bit of a splinter on the side but they were already involved like Monar Gosska and others in the in that house and and I was very impressed. So I used to go a little bit more often and then one day um um she encouraged uh us to write two poems or at least uh poetry for a magazine a booklet she was publishing called heritage. So uh I'd like to share that uh uh Mahade oh she Mahade and I um wrote our poems and uh we had to take it the printed version to Raj Kumari. So she came to my house and uh we both read what we'd written and uh I do want to say that um it was a a longer poem that she had written and I had written two small ones and I I believe this may be the first one but of course I'm not completely sure. Um and when I read her poem I told her there and then how impressed I was with it.
And off we went to Raj Kamari's house.
And um as a matter of fact I have the booklet and in it are some pieces by Henry by Mutu by Rupal Monar and so on.
The poem is titled Mystery of the Night and it's a poem that's really um soft and gentle and she's she's reflecting on on night and what it means to her and uh it was published in this collection so but I don't know if it was published elsewhere and of course in 1975 I came to Canada so we lost touch so all those years with Mahade in national service I didn't know her at that time. I was making my new life in Canada. But um the la we used to communicate when she was in New York and just briefly when she was in Chicago but when Mahade was not well she went back to Guyana and I was I went looking for her I couldn't find her and then I heard she returned she went to Barbados and that was the last but there is an early part of her life and Henry has mentioned it is that aspect of her creativity ity as it was emerging um during her early years. And so that's really what I would like to say about Maddie. Thank you so much.
>> Thank you. Before before you go, um we've heard so much about her from all of you, but we haven't heard a single one of her poems.
Would you mind reading that poem to us, please?
>> Disabled. Okay. It's a very simple poem, actually. Hold on. Yeah. Okay.
Mystery of the night. Falling shadows of the night descent so softly, so silently where I stand alone beneath these stars.
I stare above. I study the moon, the stars, the trees, the night.
Oh night, where are who are you?
A great black veil that hides the sky.
A symbol of rest, of peace, of calm and placid thoughts.
A friend of natural unspoiled things, preserver of this life? night. Are you a cruel force? A softer, darker mask covering so much turbulence, so many hidden emotions, so much that seeds beneath veneers of sophistication and self-possession.
What are unite?
A black curtain of mystery and shrouding the foliage of the trees.
Embracing wild birds and beasts asleep in your hair.
Hugging to your breast the stalking midnight spirits and moondrrenched lovers hiding nature's evils and yours so cautiously.
I look at you night that lies below these studs of night of light the silver moon the jewel stars yet is captured raptured in the canopy the ceiling of these lights lending more magnificent to the jeweled bulbs of night where in lies taunting shadows oversized reflection frightening thoughts that haunt the child. The terror the night which steeply creeps upon the day into darker hues and blacker shades of the night.
What are you knight? Who leads men on to find your mysteries, your secrets, causing the young to be enraptured, to envisage your nostalgic romance or to shudder at your deep sinister meanings.
And though we cannot penetrate you, yet you cause us to marvel, to exalt at the beauty you bestow to your helpmate, the moon and the myriad stars, symbolizing a timeless union, an eternal beauty and tranquility.
Thank you.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Dr. Mahab, would you like to comment?
>> Oh, it's very beautiful and um there are all kind of symbolism and various interpretations of the moon is very philosophical and uh very incisive and has a lot of depth and subject to a lot of interpretations.
Indeed. Thank you, >> Kum Gupta. Your hand has been up for quite a while. Thank you for your patience.
Please go ahead.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Hello everybody. So it's very nice to see somebody what I call in the modern times to be you know to be revered so much um because we are so used to listening to like historic and legendary figures from like 1800s 1900s you know so it's very nice to to hear about Mah and I have two questions one is what is national service because I'm not from that part of the world and then also did she ever get any national or international recognition like say a presidential award or any kind of lit lit literary award.
>> Okay, good question.
>> So maybe Vishnu because he spoke about national service. What was national service?
>> National service was mandated service for anyone wishing to attend university.
So if you were in university, you would not get your diploma unless you serve at least one year for national service in the interior of Guyana. Uh doing all kinds of uh whatever the government mandated for you to do. Um it it over a period of time it also became a requirement for all government employees. So if you were a teacher, if you were a civil servant, you were required to serve several weeks of national service.
So it's a was voluntary. It was a voluntary um activity and and you do whatever the government instructed you to do when when you were assigned to national service. So you could be assigned to the interior of the jungle around the whether it is at the border of Venezuela, Brazil or Surinam or anywhere else. Now um Kraton mentioned Kimia. Kimia was one of the first and um Mu mentioned um somewhere of Suzy which is going towards the Lynen McKenzie uh area. So in theory, it was a good program that that that um required people to serve their country, but it was a program that became very abusive and um it mandated people to to serve in a program that they were not comfortable with. As as Mutu pointed out, when he went to go and join the service, he realized it was not something about nationalism. It was about propaganda about joining the army to defend the force burnum dictatorship and so on and so forth. So that was now Mahadeas was indeed denied her diploma.
She finished her degree in economics as Alright and correctly stated but she was not given the diploma and therefore she had difficulty moving on to the graduate school. how she managed to get her transcript and so forth. She you know this everyone would normally do you pay bribe you get your document and she went on to study at Columbia University. One of the things that no one mentioned is that is that Maharedas was accepted I believe at the University of Chicago.
She did doctoral studies in Chicago. She was not able to complete it because of funding. She lacked the um the financial resources and and her sister used to support her. Um I don't remember this was in Guyana or in Barbados but I believe Madas died in Barbados.
>> I think Ravi um would have had some contribution to make to her um going to Barbados. So maybe >> Ravi did Yeah, Ravi did buy >> you can ask him to to speak.
>> Yeah, Ravi did did make some financial contribution I think for her trip to go to Guyana.
>> Yes. Um, where are you seeing Rabbi or did he leave?
>> Yes, he's in the audience.
>> Uh, oh yes. Yes, you can unmute and turn on your video if you wish.
Ravi.
Yep.
>> Yeah. Um I'm really really happy to participate in this discussion of Mahadei's uh work and um I don't want to go on long but I think uh Henry Mutu uh put everything together when he she he talked about her her origin. Um as Janet said uh she's from the East Bank and they were poor people very poor people but she had gotten scholarship to go to bishops. uh I'm just a bit older than her and I was going to Indians at that time and I know the circumstances uh even though east bank is not really deep country you were seen as outsiders in Guyana uh in Georgetown and Mahade had to grapple with that and uh in one sense was taken in by the Raj Kumari Singh's family uh who were the torchbearers uh from the beginning of the century of Indian culture such as it was in Guyana and Raj Kumari uh had a run in with Dr. Jagen in 1962 and I think she was expelled from the women's arm of the PPP and then gravitated towards the PNC when Bernham launched the uh national service which talked about getting all gy together uh in in one location in a sense to literally come together because by that time Guyana had partitioned internally we all the villages and everybody were partitioned. So um Mahade fell into a group, the messenger group of which uh we have some members here that already were were in a sense given an orientation as to where we ought to be heading into this one Guyana which sounds very good but in reality in practical terms as Gora Singh Rashkumari's son told me later in in in in New York uh really was intended to promote ote Bernham's vision of what Guyana ought to be. So, Mahade was very idealistic in the beginning and you can see that idealism in that first poem that Janet wrote and I think we ought to publish that for a 17-year-old girl to write uh like that. And so in New York, I had founded a center in Queens where Mahade would come. This was in the mid80s, 84, 85, 86. and she would come, she was up at Colombia at the time, and we would talk and it was therefore a time where she could reflect on what she had passed through, reflect on the idealism of her, um, national service, uh, for uh, where she was raped by one of the big ones, um, whom we have named in Guyana, uh, was never brought to to justice. She um wrote in a very idealistic fashion when people really emphasized they came in ships. They really well felt that somehow she was more oriented towards the Indian cultural aspects. It was not necessarily so. The other poems really want to be the poetist of my people. She never said the want to be the poet of Indians. So in that in that first collection you will see you know for all gies and she w she did believe like that but her experiences in the rape and afterwards and at Eugji disillusioned her. So by the time I met her in 858 ' 86 she would reflect upon that and she was very leerary of getting involved with groups that were ideologically oriented and in that sense our work in up in New York at that time fighting against the dictatorship Gora and myself and all of us we were very ideologically anti-PNC and at that time there was the whole hegemony of creole culture And we saw Indian culture needed to be given that push. And I want to be very upfront here that I once spoke to Mahade up at our center about lending her giving her shoulder to that particular wheel and she very politely declined that um it was not what she was all about and that she had come to accept that a poet or a poetist or a writer a real writer uh what they're writing has to be what V night Paul calls the their excretions it comes out of their very essential being.
And this is why I see so much of the analysis of Mahade not really grounding her work at in the times of her life. So as a young girl uh with the messenger group uh they're very poor and in a sense being given this light into a different world by Rajari Singh and and their family in in when so when she publishes her second work uh my finest steel will grow or or something like that she is in she's already in America and is published over here and by that time she could then include her experience with the WPA and refers directly to Walter Rodney and his assassination in which she names Burnham rather courageously and at the back cover of that book uh the the publishers right there asked Mahade should they take out her name and she says no they're killing people in Guyana but but she will take that risk where she calls out Burnham all the way in 82 when was called out as the as the uh you know the the assassin of Walter Rodi so by that time she had become come um much more attuned to the realities of Guyana life and being grounded it in New York City going up to New uh to Colombia and doing philosophy. We see her then gravitating into a more philosophical mode using uh what she was learning uh in in um up at Colombia there. Uh so we we talk about existentialism and all of that which is not apparent in her earlier poems except unconsciously and in her final poems in in po she again goes back to what I see her gravitating into becoming her own person and to a greater extent her own woman. she now identifies much more not with uh you know I don't want to to poo poo it uh what you know people like to put down feminism but it was a necessary reaction to patriarchical hierarchy and mahade suffered because of that and knows that and in her work her later works she then uh deals with and confronts that so I I would really like to feel that um a study is is needed to on mahade because I I think uh young as she was, she's a couple of years younger than me, she to a great extent because of her innate genius. And I use that word very advisely because of her genius. What was inside of her was not out was not allowed to to blossom. It had to be forced out of her because of her strained circumstances. And it was rather to me demeaning that at each stage there had to be collections done for her. And so when she had this brain aneurysm out in Chicago and we in New York who knew her got the call, we all raised funds for her and I did my little bit and got back. But to my great surprise and I want to end here. When I got back to my village of Ephlet, which is deep countryside on the west coast of Dearara, to my great surprise, I see Mahade living in a one room apartment in my village all the way from civilization and wandering the streets. And people saw her as a classic mad woman, you know, uh they they would uh in a sense mock her. And uh Ian McDonald, our foremost uh critic and poet uh so-called in the newspapers from that elite crowd uh writes in one article as to how she shows up at his office and he wouldn't see her. he wouldn't see her because she he sees her as mad and she goes and pounds on the door and he writes this person who is seen as this great representative of the artist goes and and and said and writes that she she she hears this mad woman pounding on my door as if she expects me to be able to publish her works. Of course she expects them. it was people like McDonald and Seymour and the whole um national um arts council that had published her first work that in a sense assured her that this was what it was all about. So I would think and I agree with I think was uh Mutu who said that uh her life is a tragedy not in terms of any Elizabethan tragedy but in the sense of how Hegel uses the word tragedy that uh both sides have their goods. Both sides in a sense are fighting a just war. And so in that sense, Mahade uh propositions and those whom she confronted, I think they both had their positions and I think we need to evaluate that and it'll do justice I think to Mi. Thanks for giving me a little time here.
>> Thank you. Great.
>> You're always welcome on our platform.
We'd love to hear your analysis of everything and I want to thank you very much for sharing.
At this point, I think what I'd like to do is I'd like to invite Mr. Kraton again as well as Mr. PMA Pasad um please just add some closing comments based on the comments from members of our audience.
Mr. creator.
>> Okay. Uh I don't know just say the the I just just wanted to to to point out the what I was describing as well first of all her place among the leading poets of the country and what she basically focused done and the ease with which um people would compartmentalize, people would classify and categorize and um the the the fact that the leading poets, it became very difficult to to do that with with them and in particularly with Mahadeas and the the things that I I had referred to a number of criticisms which saw her work in terms of her contribution to East Indian gy poetry, the contribution to feminists poetry and so on which she which she she did all contribute to but then sometimes you know unless the the the work is is outstandingly so as in the case of Raj Kumari Singh for For example, it it is a little dangerous to um to classify uh to classify these poets. I made mention of a a number of I made mention of the Indian poets. Um there there was Raj Kumari, there was Janet Naidu, there was there was uh Ellie Nand and and and uh and Mahade and to point out how the way in which most of them were not categorized, you know, could it could not be categorized in in in in in one way and in I think he has some internet issues.
>> Yeah.
>> And even when you come to I I did like Muhammad and and again who cannot be categorized in terms of in terms of their racial focus. But I make the point not because Mah had well in fact let me put it a different way. had I did contribute to the East Indian poetry and and and but it is a it is a mistake to classify her in that way and and that is why I pointed to her later preoccupations when she was after she went to the USA and where she wrote her best poetry and which poet through which appears in those two books, Bones and uh a leaf in his ear and which is largely existentialist postmodernist and so on that kind of that that kind of her she was very much into existential existentialism and I think that that is where her focus is self-discovery the kind of selfdiscovery and the kind of um of thing about existence.
I I just said I didn't I didn't prepare a closing statement so that cannot represent a closing statement but just a a further addition additional comment >> and that's fine. We appreciate that.
Thank you. Before you go, um, uh, Kumu had asked whether she had received any national awards. Can you say?
>> Well, I I don't know. I I believe Pamba might know. I I cannot um >> comment on that.
>> Well, thank you very much. Pamba, would you mind dying? Do you know whether she had received any national awards and further if she didn't do you think she was deserving of one?
>> PMA unmute.
>> Can you mute your mic please?
>> Can you unmute PMA?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Just a while. Are you hearing me now?
>> Yeah. Yes.
>> You can turn on your video. Okay. But okay.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can tell you this.
This was a learning experience for me.
I've learned so much this afternoon, right? Uh she still remains a mystery and if we can get together and put the pieces together, I think we'll see um better picture of Makai.
Now, as to her um award or not award, I have not been able to ascertain if she was awarded anything apart from the crown, the beauty crown.
But um for her literary work, no, I haven't heard anything. Deserving, yes. Now that we've gone through what we've gone through this afternoon, I think she deserves something.
Thank you.
>> Thank you for that Dr. Mahab.
>> So um yeah in my readings of her she hasn't gotten any award.
It is unfortunate but I think um we should dwell upon look into her work and uh and give it the value that it deserves. So maybe at conferences and so on we can seminars.
>> Yeah.
>> But you know one thing for a writer to be in an anthology is like an award. Um she'd be cited in a number of anthologies here and overseas. In fact when she was overseas she was in two anthologies.
uh, Common Grounds and another one uh, in many of the local anthologies.
And then for to have your one of your poems performed over and over and over again, that is some sort of award. They came in ships. I've done it numerous times and it's a powerful book poem to perform.
So for a writer to be included in you know some well-known anthologies is like winning a prize.
And in fact um in fact there was this um publication a a public published by people tree edited by a group of of of people that used her poem as a title. They came in ships.
>> Oh yeah.
>> And they came in ships. But up to now it is still the most comprehensive and the most important collection of East Indian writing in Guyana and with very good introductions by Jeremy pointing and they you they they used Mahadas's poem they came in shapes as the kind of title for that volume and as the title of the book which in a sense shows respect, shows a tribute to the value and the importance of of her work. And in fact, that poem, they came in shift is still one of the most important, one of the best known poems about the East Indian experience in Guyana. Raj Kumari Singh wrote a number of them but um they came in ships I think still stands as one of the outstanding statements about the East Indian experience in Guyana.
>> So there you go. I mean, >> yeah, >> her her her being anthologized um the name of that poem being used for a you an anthology of of work by East Indians is indeed some sort of recognition that the literary world >> and and I I could even say too that when people tree three decided to publish a leaf in his ear. It was largely because they saw the need to put in one volume her most outstanding poems, you know. So they took from bones and they went back and took from some of the the the other poems and put them there because it was felt that it was important to have on record in one publication her work as one of the one of the outstanding gy poets.
>> Yep. Yep. Very well said.
>> Terrific. So thank you for that. We really appreciate all that you all have shared. Dr. Vishnu Bisram, Mr. Charl Kraton, PMA Pasad as well as Janet Naidu, um Henry Mutu, uh Ravid of Kovas.
Um Kumu, thank you for raising that question so that we know now that despite the fact that she may not have received awards directly, her work is certainly deserving and has been receiving awards on its own. So I want to thank you all very much for allowing us the opportunity to share a bit with you about Mahade Das's life and her work. And at this point I want to turn you all over now to Ashley Cinnan to formally close. Thank you very much.
>> Yes, I truly appreciate today's forum mainly because I am also a literature student and literature is something that is very close to my heart. has been so since I was in concourse and I want to add to what Mr. This RA was saying earlier about CC and including this interc also be included at the UEIE level particularly one of the courses which is Caribbean women's writers and I think Caribbean generally means people of the Caribbean and I think um that she should also be in she should also be included uh as part of the teachings as well. I would have loved to learn about her. She is seems to be a very intriguing person.
Her poems are beautiful. Like I have listened to uh Miss Janet and her poem that was a beautiful poem and I would have loved to study that at the UEI level in doing Caribbean women's writers. I think she should have been included. I think she should have been studied. So I think there's more to do in terms of the education process. um not just at CEC at Cape level but at UEIE level to be you know including all of these people um and making them a part of the study. So with that being said I would like to thank everybody for being a part of today's forum for taking the time to attend and participate.
Thank you to Shalima for being a great moderator as always. And as was said earlier, this public meeting is being hosted by the Indo-Caribbean Cultural Center. Feel free to contact the ICC to publish your books. Remember that we are asking you to kindly give us your suggestions. If you give a donation, your name will be placed on our poster and all promotional materials. Please contact Dr. Mahabir for details. Our topic next Sunday will be the launch of Professor Betoram's book titled The Wisma Massacre. Thanks to our planning team led by Dr. Kumar Mahabir and Shalima Muhammad. Thanks to our IT consultants Navin Mangal and Daryl Gransam. And thanks to Daryl again for designing the poster. Please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and see our past recordings. And before we end today, NA will play a short video for Mother's Day. And to all our mothers attending and listening to this program, I am Ashley Sal and I'm from Trinidad and Tobago. Say thank you and goodbye.
Daniel Heat.
Hey, Heat.
Heat. Heat.
Heat.
Heat.
Heat. Heat.
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