Glifted writers

among the bores

The Indo-Fijian Experience.

Published by University of

Queensland Press. Edited by Subramani. 5F6.75.

May 1979 marked the hun dredth anniversary of the coming of the Indians to Fiji.

For the occasion a com mittee was set up to raise funds to build a commemorative multi-cultural centre on more than five hectares of government-donated land at Lautoka, Fiji’s second city on the main island of Viti Levu.

The ambitious project was estimated to cost an astronomi cal SF2 million. The committee came up with several ideas to raise this money. One was to publish and sell a book about the indenture period and events surrounding it.

The result? A book called

The Indo-Fijian Experience re

cently released by the Univer sity of Queensland Press.

The book of more than 200 pages, is a collection of articles, personal anecdotes, short stories and poems by a host of largely local writers. It is div ided into three sections, begin

ning with an interpretative

article on Indians in Fiji by Dr Ahmed Ali, a lecturer at the University of the South Pacific who is well known locally for his political commentaries.

Ali explains the forces that led the Indians to throw aside the shackles of tradition and custom and renounce their motherland in favour of a far away and unknown island

called Fiji. Among other things

the article tells of the dreaded sea voyages, their arrival, their contact with the ethnic Fijians, the indenture itself and the atti tude of the British Government towards them.

Ali offers, often with

probing deftness, insights into

the Indians’ quest for political

equality, their feelings of

insecurity and their deep

rooted desire to own land. He tells of the conflicting emotions

of a race that initially came to make a fortune and then return home, but who, as they began to put down roots in Fiji, gradually started to sever the umbilical cord that bound them to India.

I found some of Ali’s obser vations brilliant, his insights

piercing, occasionally harsh

and at times uncomfortable.

But despite its facinating con tent, Ali’s chief flaw is in mak ing his article a bit too academic and putting it be yond the reach of the average reader.

One of the most terrible maritime disasters in Fiji was the wreck of the indenture ship Syria in 1884. The wreck on Nasilai reef near Suva cost 70 lives. A relatively unknown local writer Brij V. Lai tells all about it in a simple narrative titled The Wreck of Syria.

Donald Brenneis’ article on the conflict in a rural Indian settlement in Fiji called Bhat gaon, and another article jointly written by Brenneis and Ram Padarath on song chal lenges in the same village, are presented as research papers in the book. I found both of them dull and more suitable for a re search textbook.

The second part begins with what I consider is the most brilliant piece in the whole book. It is a chapter from a book called Turn North-East of the Tombstone written by the late Walter Gill who worked for the Colonial Sugar Re

fining Company during the

indenture period.

It is a tragic-comic account of how a 22-year-old white overseer struggles to cope with the demanding work of being in charge of a group of inden tured labourers, assigning them work, running into strife while giving them their meagre pay, acting as their nursemaid, and attending to their wide range of peculiar and at times outrage ous problems. Gill is a superb story-teller and the result is

both captivating and hilarious.

His piece alone makes it worth ing buying the book you will

enjoy it.

Through The Time Tunnel by Vijendra Kumar of the Fiji Times is a touching account of how he successfully sets out to fulfil a childhood dream by visiting his grandmother’s birthplace in a small village in India which she had left several decades ago. Simply written, it has parallels with Roots the best-seller by Alex Hailey, and is likely to appeal to a wide spectrum of readers.

The second section also con

tains two pieces by the gifted

local writer and USP lecturer Raymond Pillai, both of which were published by PIM some time ago. Pillai’s style is unpre

tentious and unusually appeal

ing.

There are also four short stories by the book’s editor Subramani including Mari golds which was the winner of the first short story compe tition run by the South Pacific Association for Common wealth Literature and Language Studies last year.

I felt somehow let down after

reading Marigolds and his

other stories. Perhaps I unfairly expected a lot simply because of all the publicity about Mari golds. But I feel that in his

stories, particularly Marigolds

and No Man’s Land , Subramani fails to achieve the common ground a writer needs to share with his audience to get his work not only read but under stood.

The Guru , a short story by Satendra Nandan, another local writer and lecturer at the USP, is a humorous and fairly well written piece once you do away with excesses like the bit about ‘sweat trickling down the crotch’. Nandan’s flaw in writing is his use of vulgarity.

Some writers have the knack of

using vulgarity and giving it the

appearance of art but somehow when Nandan uses it it seems like sheer bad taste.

Sulochna Nand’s poem A Bastard Child is a sharply ob servant account of what it is like to be born the child of an Indian father and a Fijian mother. The poem has an

honesty and reality about it that is revealing and sad.

I found the style of writing in Sumant Kevat’s and Saten dra Nandan’s poems chaotic.

Both fail to establish what their poems are all about. The pace is often disjointed and ab rupt.

Vijay C. Mishra’s piece titled The Indo-Fijian Fiction is too

long, boring and simply not

suitable for a book such as this.

He simply fails to capture one’s interest. Let’s be frank. Does the average reader give a damn about such supposedly ‘schol

arly’ analysis? Again the piece

was more suited to a text book.

After going through the

whole book I feel it contains a few good pieces that make it

worth buying.

However, I have a feeling that because of its unattractive cover and the poor choice of much of the material the book is ultimately destined to gather dust on the shelves of reference

libraries.

Sarita Singh.