Episode Two
The Prasad Family of Sabeto
In the first episode of this eventful story of my roots I managed to present the plight of my grand parents who had come to Fiji under the indenture system and established themselves as successful farmers in a place called Botini in Sabeto. In this section we keep moving ahead. This part will focus on my parents-Bhagauti Prasad, my father and Ram Kumari, my mother and this will show how I am linked to this historical development.
My grandfather Sarju Mahajan was a person who believed in the four eternal truths of life and used to say that there was sorrow in Life; there was a reason for all sorrow; that that sorrow would definitely end and that there was a way to end that sorrow. He died in 1966 at the age of ninety but when he was living he used to ask me in the evenings to read and recite the holy books to him. He would listen intently and correct my pronunciations and other mistakes. Thus, through these readings and recital of episodes he instilled a love of reading and religion in me.
Sarju Mahajan, my grand father
My grandparents retired from all farming activities in 19 60 . By this time they had developed a wealthy life and left the last farm to my uncle Chetram. My grandfather then devoted most of his time in charity work helping religious organizations and schools. From ordinary Sarju my grandfather was known as Sarju Mahajan by then.
My grandfather was a generous man all his life and became a money lender to help people who needed funds to build their houses and buy necessary commodities for their farms. He did not charge any interest but people paid him in kind when they returned his money to him.
He lived a happy life until 1975 and passed away at the age of 83. My grandmother lived for another few years and left this world in 1979 at the age of 85. They had contributed immensely for the family, friends, relatives and the community.
Like Balmiki, the original writer of the epic Ramayan, my father, Bhagauti Prasad also became a reformist when he was told of the five precepts of life. He agreed to abstain from killing, stealing, adultery, lying and liquor.
Jaan aadikavi naam pratapa bhayea sidha Kari ulta jaapa. (Ramayana Chaupayee)
Bhagauti Prasad's father was Sarju Mahajan who had come with his wife Gangadei from Basti in UP India in 1907 as an indentured labourer to work for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Australia. Ram Kumari’s father was Bali Hari but my mother’s mother Shiu Pali died when my mother was born.
My mother was brought up by her step mother, Dukia. Very little is known about my maternal grandmother but her father Shiubaran, who was from a village in Calcutta, died in Nabila during the great flood and epidemic in 1926.
Despite his many shortcomings my father tried to lead an eight-fold path by being of right understanding, thought, speech, actions, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.
By bringing about so much of transformation in his life he led the family through a lot of troubles to a peaceful and fruitful end. He too died on April 12 1988 at the age of about 70. He was diabetic and had a heart arrest because of diabetic coma after a very short illness in Suva hospital.
When I visited him in the hospital the day of his death on April 12 at midday he had asked me for five things. Firstly, he said I should recite a few slokas from Geeta or Ramayana, our Holy books.
I recited this slok for him and he listen to it very carefully and even explained the meaning to me.
Yada yada hi dharmasye glanirbhauti bharat
Abhyukthanamdharmasye tadatmanam srajamehyam
Paritranaaye saadhoona vinaashaaye ch dushkritaam
Dharmsansthapanarthaye sambhawaami yuge yuge
Secondly, he said that life was very short and it was very important for the head of the family to try to keep everyone happy and peaceful through good guidance and strong bond of love and affection. He said he was able to perform this task well and he wanted me to do the same.
Thirdly, he asked me not to perform any unnecessary cultural and religious rituals after his death but to cremate him and throw his ashes into the sea. He said that antim sanskaar was the final ceremony that you do for the dead body at the cemetery and there should be no other religious rites after that because while the dead body has been turned into ashes the soul has migrated to the realm of heaven to be either reincarnated or resting in peace forever.
Then he said that he was very sorry if he failed as a father to develop and guide his nine children in the right direction. He said he had done his best but he wanted every one of his children to ensure that their children were developed with good parenting and excellent education.
However, he was happy that he had thoroughly reformed himself after some wrong doings of the early days and had shown his children the right path of life. He truly repented his misdeeds and had never forgiven himself for his poor role model. This he said was his praayschit.
Lastly, he said that it was my duty to look after my mother after his death even if she was to create problems for me. She needed to be tolerated because she was an illiterate person.
This was the premonition of his death because that afternoon when I was travelling back to my Nadi home I got a message that he had passed away. I was happy that I was able to spend the last hour with him.
He taught us to give charity to the deserving, observe the precepts of morality, cultivate and develop good thoughts, render service and attend on others, honor and nurse parents and elders, give a share of your merits to others, accept the merits that others give you, hear the doctrine of righteousness and rectify your faults.
He said that every human being was equal and must be treated as per the work they do. He did not believe in any sects or caste systems. He gave me the three Ds of his family life: daya, daan and daman - kindness, charity and control.
I am truly proud of my father who taught me a lot of things about life and living .The three warnings that he gave me are still fresh in my mind. Firstly, he said that we all are subject to decay or destruction and we cannot escape old age, condition of being frail and bent down. But we should try to lead a healthy life through balanced diet and reasonable exercise.
Secondly, he said that we all are subject to disease, and we cannot escape sickness. While living we should be thoughtful of others, be kind and considerate. Avoiding poor eating habits and doing a bit of yoga always helped us to be free from illness.
Thirdly, he said that we all are subject to death and we cannot escape from dying. Death is certain for us but living should be rewarding. If that was our understanding then what reason is there for us to hate each other and create enmity? Love and friendship were the cornerstone of human living, he assured me.
He wanted us to wake up to our responsibilities and be freed from all fears. He said life was too short to get bogged down in petty things so we must perform well to be loved, remembered and honored as parents.
I also tried my best to bring up four of my children making it sure that they were well educated, well catered for and lived with a lot of love around them. Of course, as my father never spared a rod for my growing up I too tried my best to discipline my children and I do not regret taking that action.
Our mixed farmstead in Botini had a variety of crops like rice, peanuts, pineapples, vegetables, fruits and sugarcane. Working hours for the family members were long and even the children and women had to perform all the tasks. Women took turns to cook for the whole tribe and whoever was not on culinary duties had to work in the field.
The thing that added more happiness to the growing up process was the strong social structure of the family. There were many uncles and aunts nearby to baby-sit and the grandparents were always around to look after the baby.
My mother had never been to formal school and was illiterate but she was very protective of her family. My father had completed his education up to class six and was a regular but a critical reader of various epics and religious books.
He later became the president of various religious bodies in the community and was a very respected leader in the village. Ironically he was addressed as Sardar as were the early sector officers during the indenture system. He retired as a farmer, sold his Botini farm in 1974 and went to live in Nadera in Nasinu near Suva city.
As a person my father achieved a lot in his lifetime. He often said that it was a sad thing that we loved ourselves more, and our country and community a lot less. We have tried to make ourselves rich, secure and great, not our country and community. We should always remember to give a lot more of our time, effort and resources to our country and our community. We must ask our nation and our society to forgive us for this selfishness. By giving we receive the richest blessings of the God Almighty.
As the years passed, my eldest uncle Hiralal claimed his share and moved to a nearby farm with his family and began the farm work independently. As explained before, my grandfather, Sarju Mahajan, donated this property to them. Sarju Mahajan had three sons and six daughters. Hiralal, Bhagauti Prasad, Chetram were the sons and Sukhraji, Shiuraji, Dhiraji, Mangali, Mahadei and Ramdei were the daughters.
My village of Botini in Sabeto; a village rich in culture, community and control, a place where people lived in harmony and all sorts of cultivation was at its peak, an environment that boasted self-sufficiency at all times.
People lacked nothing and enjoyed life to the fullest. Our farm was made up of a thirty-hectare of native lease that had rough terrain but the soil in the valley was very rich and alluvial for any crop to flourish.
A small stream of fresh water ran across the property and big trees of na-ivi, coconuts, mangoes, and other fruit trees were growing well along both sides of the stream. Fish of various types and eels swam in that stream and during my childhood I loved fishing there with an old man called Sahadatt, who lived as a hermit in a small thatched house that my father had built for him. He was like a caretaker or a watchman for our farm. He cooked his own meals and many times made me enjoy the good taste of the eel curry that he so tactfully prepared.
On our farm of sugarcane, pineapples, rice and mixed vegetables there was always plenty to do and enjoy. The hilltops were overgrown with guava trees that were always laden with fruit for us to pick. Anything that we wanted was on the farm; sugarcane to eat, pineapples to slice, delicious coconuts to drink, mangoes galore, citrus fruits of all kind, pawpaws, melons, cucumbers, rockmelons and many others. That was self-sufficiency at its extreme.
It was against this backdrop that my parents were always eager to practise great experiments on their farm and the Agriculture Department of Fiji assisted them with advice and seeds and seedlings of potatoes, citrus fruits and other vegetables. The vegetable section on our farm produced enormous amounts of beans, cabbages, corn, cucumber, melons and similar crops that were delivered to Lautoka and Nadi Markets every Friday on our Ford Six truck.
Such were the rural and village luxuries I enjoyed on the farm when I was a primary school child at Sabeto Primary School from 1946 to 1953 and a secondary student at Natabua High School from 1954 to 1957.
I worked on the goat and cattle farms as a herdsman and acted as a cowboy on many occasions. I also did a lot of ploughing, planting, weeding, hoeing and harvesting using our pairs of oxen and finely bred farm horses. No work was hard for me and I worked in the vegetable gardens, fruit, and pineapple and sugarcane farms. So much so that my father had to ask me to slow down and concentrate on my schoolwork so I had to divert my energy and move on in this progressive direction.
As I mentioned before, my mother never went to school and did not have any reading and writing skills but she had many good human qualities. She was a very powerful woman who controlled her children well. She was an excellent cook and displayed extreme passion and understanding when she interacted with her children. She could not help us with our schoolwork but she guided us to lead a good life. I always had a great admiration for her commitment and empathy.
People say I have learnt most of my values from my mother and they may be right because a lot of my social communication style, my general human interaction and my daily conduct come from my mother. I am proud of the fact that despite her illiteracy she was able to do so much for me. I am reminded of the opening line of Ravindranath’s poem: Amma teri mamta ka nahi koi mol.
My family members called me Lakhan in those days but my mother called me Badkana, which meant the eldest. My formative years were of average academic standard but I began to excel from Class six onwards and was a role model for many village students. I was always among the top three students at school but my sporting activities were limited to some soccer and hockey games only. I loved sports and athletics but there weren’t many opportunities to participate and compete in those days.
My reading activities were limited to reciting from the Holy Books-Ramayana and Bhagwat Gita for my grand parents and parents, the Jungle Book and the New Method Readers. There were no public libraries in those days and the school library had only a limited collection. I did not have the luxury of bedtime story reading.
However, whenever we got our supply of bread and other goods from the town shops, the items were wrapped with pages of old newspaper. My father collected these for us to read and at times he tested us by asking us to read the news items aloud to him and explain those in his vernacular language, Hindi. Stale news but it gave me an opportunity to learn about other countries.
While at primary school I participated in a lot of dramatic activities at the local temple where the religious drama activities of Ram Lila, Krishna Lila and Lav Kush Lila were dramatised on stage for the public to enjoy. These were conducted at the hall at nights for weeks and I enjoyed acting the role of Lord Rama.
My grand father was the director and my father was the president of the Sanatan Dharam Mandali of Sabeto. After the stage work was over we had our dinner there. We enjoyed the dhal, rice and chatnee prepared so skilfully by my grand father, who was a great cook in times of need.
During my school days I used to work on my father’s farms of rice, pineapple, sugarcane and lentils and go to the markets with my father to sell the items on Saturdays at the CSR Compound in Lautoka where the market day used to be organised.
These were one of the most interesting selling experiences and interactions with the business and other communities and I learnt a lot from these interactions and activities. My father had a lot of regular customers only because his produce was always clean, fresh and well displayed. My father was fundamentally a different type of vendor for the customers because he cared about them and gave them tender loving care and good service.
The days when our supplies were more than the demand we were left with some of our produce, which we had to throw in the nearby paddock where the cows enjoyed eating them. My father would not sell them cheaply or give these free to anyone but he was very happy to witness the scene when the cows of Maan Singh Dairy farm munched the vegetables away slowly with interest.
This paradigm of circumstances confused me in the beginning but when I understood the ethic behind feeding the animals I could see that as a Hindu my father was doing nothing more than just feeding the sacred cows.
Milking of cows and goats was one my favourite past times. Then the rule was to boil your milk and extract the butter fat from the yoghurt the next day using a bamboo extractor in a large four-litre container.
Of course, it was my duty to get fresh green para and guinea grass for my cows and goats in order that they continued to provide us with a lot of fresh milk. These were difficult chores but interesting and soothing to my soul.
One of the ideas that got ingrained into me after my father constantly and continuously motivated me was the concept of hard and quality work so whatever I did, I did it well and with all my interest. There was no farming activity that I could not perform but while doing those I never faltered in my studies. My commitment to all my tasks was very solid and deep.
It was through these quintessential paths that my grandparents and parents built for me, that I found my upward mobility easy and smooth. My grandparents and parents were poor in the beginning but that was no excuse for their inadequacies. As the transformation of circumstances developed, they learnt to persevere and cleared the slippery rung of their ladder of progress through hard work and determination. I shared the same anxiety, ambitions and adaptations to move ahead with pride.
It was examination time at school and I had to study hard so I carried my notebooks with me when I was grazing my cattle in the field. I was so engrossed in my studies that I forgot to keep an eye on the animals, which wondered onto a nearby vegetable area and destroyed a lot of our seedlings and crops.
My father was furious to see the destruction and I remember getting the brunt of his full anger when he used his whip on me instead of the animals. I regretted this but never again did I falter in my farming duties and chores that were allocated to me. The paradox of this event is that you have to be cruel to be kind.
My father was a disciplinarian and always wanted his children to do the right thing and do well in every human activity. He loved his children very much and would do anything to keep them happy. He wanted me to be someone to remember because I was the eldest.
His happiness was beyond his control when he learnt that I was going to be a teacher. He was overwhelmed to hear that news because that was his objective. It turned out that I was his only child out of the nine that had developed a profession. Later in life he told me that he was very happy that I had achieved good results in life and met his expectations.
In those days as a reward for good work for the whole month I was allowed to accompany some of my friends to Nadi town to see Hindi movies in the old wooden theatre of Harry Uraia. We used to travel by bus but later the open-air theatre came to our village and they used to screen the Hindi movies at the temple grounds and we used to enjoy the Saturday evening programs.
My father was one of the first persons in Sabeto to have a radio that needed a wet-celled battery to run and the battery needed to be regularly charged at a charger that was located about five miles away from our house. I used to carry the battery on my shoulder to have it charged and then bring it back. In this process the battery water on many occasions spoilt my clothes but the enthusiasm and anticipation to listen to the one fifteen minute Hindi program on Tuesday and an hour’s evening Hindi program on Saturday kept me going to the charger and back.
The radio station was called ZJB and the announcer and presenter of programs was Chandrika Prasad Sriwastow who had a wonderful radio voice. The program was largely made up of news items but if time permitted we were lucky to get a few old songs such as ‘bachpan ki mohabbat ko dil se na bhula dena’.
During this period of my adolescent development I was working very hard with my father on the farms to learn all the necessary tricks and traits of planting rice and vegetable and rearing goats and other animals.
Since my mind, body and soul were all busy concentrating either on the farm or on schoolwork I had very little time to develop any serious hobbies of my own but I did manage to go swimming in the Sabeto River and learn some wrestling skills from my father.
I began driving the family Ferguson Tractor and the Ford Six truck from the age of twelve when I was in Class eight. It never occurred to anyone that these were dangerous and unlawful activities.
By 1952 my parents were well-established farmers and began to pay more attention to my education and my progress improved considerably. My other brother and other sisters were at school as well but I was the centre of attraction all because I was the eldest and I used to bring good school reports home.
This put me in a hyper drive to accelerate my efforts at school. My father told me that the world out there was becoming dangerous and complex everyday and one has to get ready to face it head on.
World War Two had begun. Sounds of guns, dynamites and other ammunitions were frequenting the atmosphere. Nights were darker because of the curfews imposed but sometimes the searchlights would beam in the sky to spot the flying objects. My father was very fond of helping the soldiers and the infantry and he grew a lot of vegetables and fruits to sell these to them. He joined the soldiers as a volunteer and enjoyed his service until 1944.
These are some of my early dismal recollections of 1940s. My parents were blessed with the firm upbringing practices of my grandparents and that is one of the reasons for their continued success.
Like my grandfather, my father was also regarded as a leader of the extended family and whenever there were any disputes within the families of his sisters he was there to conduct reconciliation and peace for them. All my cousins respected my father and would behave exactly as they were told.
It was during the wartime that my father was involved with the soldiers in supplying them with drinks, fruits and vegetable in exchange for arms and ammunitions. He had developed an arsenal of his own and when the soldiers had gone he with his friends used to play with these "toys" in and around the village at nights.
Another secret of progress for my grandparents and my father was self-analysis. My father admitted that introspection was a mirror in which to see recesses of your mind that otherwise would remain hidden from you. You must diagnose your failures and sort out your good and bad tendencies.
You must analyze what you are, what you wish to become, and what shortcomings are impeding you. Decide the nature of your true task that is your mission in life. From his conclusions I gathered that I must endeavor to make myself what I should be and what I want to be.
Your success in life does not altogether depend on ability and training alone he used to say; it also depends on your determination to grasp opportunities that are presented to you. Opportunities in life come by creation, not by chance.
My grandparents and my father for all their progress and reformation created opportunities. They used the available outward means as well as the natural abilities to overcome every obstacle in their paths.
Today I am happy that I have been able to raise four intelligent children who are special to my family. Like our grandparents and parents we have always believed that our children are the greatest assets for us and whatever they do in their own lives would please us as long as they conducted themselves decently and humanely. It is important that they pass on the cultural and socio economic knowledge and learning to their children in turn. This would make us very happy and fully satisfied.
I always wanted success without measure, not from earthly sources but from God’s all-possessing, all-powerful and all-bountiful hands. I am proud that God has given me all that I needed in life because I believed in Him.
I am not religious but I believe in the Supreme Powers of the Almighty God. Like my grandparents and parents I am not conducting any religious ceremonies that make no sense to me.
I believe that you demonstrate success or failure according to your habitual trend of thoughts. If your mind is ordinarily in a negative state, an occasional positive thought is not sufficient to attract success. But if you, like my ancestors did, think rightly, you will definitely find your goal even though you seem to be enveloped in darkness. My ancestors alone were largely responsible for all their progress and development and no organization was there to help them along. Through their karma and impulsive actions they managed to look after their large family.
I learnt from my ancestors that there were always two forces warring against each other within us. One force tells us to do the things we should not do; and the other urges us to do the things we should do. Our ‘should do’ things are always difficult and ‘shouldn’t do’ things are easy. I was confused as a young man and my one voice led me to evil, and the other took me to good. However, with the right guidance of my ancestors, I soon got out of evil world and entered the world of goodness.
These were the first twenty-four years of my life and I dedicate these good years to the healthy interaction with my grand parents, my parents and my family members and friends. In these beautiful years of my growing up I was given a firm foundation to move ahead with faith, hope and freedom.
I was a role model for many in the village and to my only brother Vijendra Prasad and seven sisters, Vidya Wati, Shiu Mati, Kushma Wati, Upma Devi, Suman Lata, and Sarla Devi. They too enriched my life through their healthy interactions.
My teachers contributed a lot through their motivational pursuits and excellent guidance and I owe them a lot. What I am today is the direct result of good family life education, excellent primary education at Sabeto Primary School and a balanced educational development at Natabua High School.
My initial professional preparation at Nasinu Teachers’ College was very good foundation to proceed in the pursuit of excellence in all fields. One of my mentors of the training days was a person called John L Stevens, who in many respects guided me and provided me with excellent opportunities to further my teaching career.
Our success is therefore measured by the yardstick of happiness and by our ability to remain in peaceful harmony with everyone and everything and not by the worldly standards of wealth, prestige and power. We had enough money always but we considered ourselves only humble middle class family.
We have had everything that we wanted in life and this total fulfillment in our family life is the result of our upbringing. I thank my ancestors and my many mentors.
All our progress and development are closely related to our roots and the way we were raised and motivated by our grand parents and parents. They instilled a love of honest living and disciplined life.
We have enjoyed our life both in Fiji and in Brisbane despite some early difficulties of new migration. We know our future is bright and promising because we were given a very firm foundation by our family members.
We lead a happy life with four children with their spouses and eight grand children around us. We have a closely-knit family and share the joys and happiness of life to the fullest. What else do we need? We have achieved everything in life and are fully satisfied.
My grandparents and parents always wanted our family to be happy, prosperous and peaceful at all times so that we can keep the name and fame of our grand parents and parents high.
We had a lot of faith in God and that had paid us well in our living. We have visited India a few times in search of our roots there but have not been very successful because in a century of living in Basti things have changed a lot due to floods, hurricanes and infrastructural development.
We have not given up our hope of finding our roots and are continuing with our efforts to find our roots and are confident that one day we will be able to meet members of my grand parents' family in Dumariaganj, in the village of Senduri, in the district of Basti in Uttar Pradesh of India.
My grand father, who came from India with nothing but hope and confidence in 1906, progressed well and gave us the motivation to move ahead. With the help of his family he became one of the richest farmers in Botini through sheer hard work and diligence. He was always proud of his progress.
He was a religious man of his own free will and belief, very well respected in the village and had a very large family to support. His greatest goal was to help the poor and have a respectable family and he achieved both these aims very well.
I know that my grand parents, my parents and we have done our best as immigrants to serve various communities and countries. We have many friends, family members and relatives to emulate our successes and developments. These were our root, our boot and out toot.
I salute my grandparents and parents for their determination, dedication, diligence and complete devotion as early discovers to define and develop their own destiny and provide us the right motivation and opportunity to keep moving ahead.
This is the end of my narration but the history continues.