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book review, books, Caribbean books, Caribbean Books Foundation, Caribbean writers, culture, History, Indo-Trinidadian, kal kahanis, lifestyle, motilal boodoosingh, opinion, Review, short stories, stories of yesteryear, Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago writers, writers, writing
This is a consumer review for the Caribbean Books Foundation.
I normally write next to a window and of late the sky has been a perfect March blue. It’s a shame that there aren’t any kites in it so I’ll have to go back to the old-time days. Since the savannahs are more or less off-limits to the public due to the pandemic, I’ll have to fly kites the way I used to when I was little. In the backyard.
In those days I would trade flying kites with ‘playing pitch’ or many times crouched in a corner reading a book. If the sun was out, so was I. Heck, if it was raining I was outside too!
While visiting a Writer’s Union meeting last year I heard an excerpt from a book that, like the ones I used to read as a child, was based during the adolescent years of Trinidad and Tobago’s independence. I liked the reading so much I bought it on the spot and stored it away for an idle reading day. So this month I’ll be reviewing that book called Kal Kahanis Stories Of Yesteryear…
… by Motilal Boodoosingh.
The book is made up of several short stories. More than 20 with some of them having mini sections within it.
All of the stories focus on Indo-Trinidadian society. Before and even during the first years of Trinidad and Tobago’s independence, their culture still remained buried deep in the original customs they had brought with them from India. Caste systems, for instance, were still observed then, and the influence of sadhus was still heavily apparent in communities.
Many of the stories have the same mood or story narrative. For example…
There’s the neighbour or cousin who’s the first to go to a ‘college’, and whose family is many times more financially secure than the narrator or others in the village. This well-off family is looked up to by his poorer neighbours. However, despite their financial progress their children somehow waste all the opportunities their family’s money affords them. While life for the poorer neighbour, who is more sensible and understands the value of the little he has, ends up being a more fulfilling and successful life in the long run without money or education to help him.
It reminded me of that quote…
Many times people think that a good school and family money can make them successful without actually putting in the work themselves to get there. Yet, despite the similarities in the narrative, each story had its own merits and captivating essence.
I felt as if the narrator was looking around capturing the lives of everyone around him in a small village, as main characters from one story would appear in another character’s story as a random uncle or a friend. It truly shows that everyone has a story and I loved making the connections between characters as I read.
Kal Kahanis Stories of Yesteryear is a real gem that has gifted us with so much knowledge of the Indo-Trinidadian culture, history and traditions in Trinidad from the 1950s up to the 80s. Hindi is splattered about the book and one of the only disappointments I have is that it all wasn’t translated.
Even though I didn’t grow up during that time, this book felt very familiar. The way the stories were told felt like I was sitting down being told a story from home. One that I knew but after many years had forgotten. Stories that although they were new to me were filled with the funny, spirited nuances that I connected with the Caribbean. So despite being mainly about the life and traditions of Indo-Trindadians it was culturally familiar in so many ways.
Like calling old women ‘tantie’ and drinking orange peeled ‘tea’ in the morning and calling every hot drink ‘tea’. Going by the standpipe to get water every morning was a norm for Caribbean children back then and when there was a cultural event the whole village would attend. It felt like the good old days without being stale or outdated. This book was a true delight to read.
It should be up there with the tales of other writers from Trinidad and Tobago, like Paul Keens-Douglas and Sam Selvon.
Now despite it being incredibly entertaining, the stories marked a pivotal point in history for the twin-island republic. This was the time of cane fields and lucrative farming. The boom of the sugar industry and the oil refinery. This book proves to be a valuable historical piece as it is filled with details of everyday life back then, like using the savonette vine to brush your teeth before the plastic toothbrushes we use today became the norm. It shows the structure that some communities had as well, like using a panchayat to dissolve disputes among villagers within a community.
You also saw the injustice and sometimes plain idiocy of caste systems which continued for some time after Indians migrated to Trinidad.
It also shows the lifestyle of women back then. It was clear that women who belonged to more well-off families had more choices in that they were able to pursue an education before getting married while poor girls were pulled out of school, if they ever went to begin with, and married off much earlier. But they were all still subject to the systems of society. They were still seen as an extension of their husband and if he was thought well of, so were they. This was seen in one of my favourites stories, Boysie Kaki.
She was a powerful and revered woman in her community, not because she was intelligent, resourceful and decisive, but because her husband was well respected. Even the way she was referred to meant ‘Boysie’s aunt’, which referred to her husband’s nephew, and the narrator professed to never knowing her real name. And then there were some stories that completely strayed from the norm of women at that time like Came Back, Theresa and Saapin.
I also got the feeling that the narrator was not the same person all the time and changed as the story and perspective changed. But it mostly seemed to be from the perspective of a male child, looking on at his elders and observing the world around him as he grew into a man and made his way into the world. Some stories in this book have been published separately in journals before. The publications are listed on the second page but all in all the collection fits very nicely together.
I really liked this book and would definitely recommend it especially if you want a little history about Indo-Trinidadian culture but told in a wonderfully engaging way.
So please give Motilal Boodoosingh’s Kal Kahanis Stories of Yesteryear that takes you on a journey to another time a try! You can check the author’s Facebook page where you can find more of their work for sale, contact information and catch up on what they’re doing next! Thanks for reading and see you next month for another review!
– True Nicks, Caribbean Books Foundation
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