India: Encounters and Connections

Thoughts & Reflections

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee

What a great honour indeed that the Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world and country, India, which also has the largest population at over 1.4 billion should grant us the immense privilege of once again visiting our tiny island, barely the size of a large district in India,

Namo namah Pradhanmantri Shri Narendra Modiji, swagatam.
(Respectful salutations, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji, welcome!)

His first visit as PM was in 2015, but he had been to this ‘mini-India’ 27 years earlier, in 1998, along with Union Minister Shri Murli Manohar Joshi, attending the International Ramayana Conference that was being held at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute. He was not as yet an elected politician.

I was also present at that Conference, and was fortunate to meet him with Rajendra Arun, who himself was from India and had settled in Mauritius and was a well-known scholar of the Ramayana, and probably two others whose names I do not remember. We had a conversation as we sipped tea in a small room next to the auditorium where Shri Yashwant Pathak, Vishwa Hindu Parishad coordinator in North America and Europe, was delivering his speech.

About twenty minutes later it was Shri Modi’s turn to talk, and we all went in to listen to him. In those days my comprehension of Hindi was somewhat limited, and I could understand only about 50-60% of the words he spoke. But I got the essentials of his message. My takeaway from his speech was twofold: his powerful, almost mesmerizing oratory and next, the fact that whereas all other speakers had interspersed their talk with English expressions, Modiji’s speech was entirely in pure or shudh Hindi. Now I can understand the totality of his addresses in Hindi.

It was therefore quite natural that I should take an interest in his political career, especially from the time he was elected as Prime Minister in 2014. Whereas his first visit hadn’t received as much coverage in the Indian press, this time round both the local and Indian media (with reporters from India on ground) is awash with every detail of this brief visit of less 48 hours. Areas of cooperation in various sectors between our two countries will be recalled, and emphasis laid on the strategic convergence of interest in the Indian Ocean from a maritime security and safety point of view.

So, I will leave it to the experts and analysts to elaborate on these, and instead focus on my personal relationship with Indian and things Indian, which reveal the more grounded aspects of our mutual bonds. I am sure this will resonate with many of us of Indian ancestral origin, who may have equally enriching tales of their own.

My earliest memory goes back to my childhood. In our sitting room there were framed pictures of Subhash Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru in black and white, and a painted colour portrait of Rabindranath Tagore. It was much later that I was to learn more about them.

There were also two large metal trunks kept under the old-style bed of my Dada (paternal grandfather) that contained several brass utensils, such as large thalis, lotas, catoras, etc., which were taken to be used on special occasions such as pujas. The smaller sized ones were used on a daily basis.

I believe that my Dada had been to India in the 1920s. Sadly, I never got to talk to him about that before he passed and picked up only bits and pieces. He used to talk in Bhojpuri with the daughters-in-law and relatives who used to come. We children could understand but were not as fluent in speaking it. I improved when at the Royal College Curepipe I had classmates from Nouvelle-France who were more fluent. My spoken Bhojpuri became better when I was posted at the SSRN Hospital in 1972.

But also, at the RCC, Professor Ram Prakash who had come to Mauritius to introduce Indian languages in schools, I believe after the publication of the Ward Report, started to take us for one period every Friday afternoon as from Form IV until Upper VI.6, a total of five years. In line with the Rector H.B. Bullen’s initiative, he set up and presided the Indian Cultural Society which, like the several other societies, used to meet once a week after class where we got to know more about Indian thinkers, philosophers, poets, writers and other aspects of Indian culture.

That’s when I got to know more about Rabindranath Tagore, the illustrious son of Bengal who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his work ‘Gitanjali’. He had sent the English version that he had translated himself from Bengali to his friend the Irish poet and writer W.B. Yeats. The latter, according to what I have read, thought this was Nobel material. He also wrote an introduction to the book.

My connect with Tagore was ‘renewed’ when I went to study medicine in Kolkata (then Calcutta) in 1965, where his songs collectively known as Rabindra Sangeet used to be played daily on the radio, and I heard live singing by girl classmates when we once went on a picnic to Kalyani Garden by train from the city. They also displayed their dancing skills.

I had wanted to become a doctor, and the only way was to obtain a scholarship – short of becoming laureate which we already knew was going to be either Fan Lun or Fayolle: it was Fan Lun. When the results were out, I accordingly looked around as it was. A friend from RCPL had gone to Germany, and I tried my luck there as well, and was optimistic, and would leave sometime in August/September.

However, I had applied for the Indian scholarship too and was called for the interview in April 1965. I faced the high Commissioner of India Mr Mani, and Mr Derek Hollingworth who was delegated by the Ministry of Education. Before that he was at the RCC teaching history I think but had not been my teacher. I was selected and won an ICCR scholarship. From the very pleasant exchange that we had – the interview was more a like a friendly dialogue – I think that the fact that I had won the first prize in an essay competition organized by the Indian High Commission in October 1964 was a positive help in my winning the scholarship. The prize giving was held in early December with Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam presenting the prizes. Mr Mani, shortly after the interview began, had remarked, ‘oh, you’re the one who won the first prize.’ The rest, as the saying goes, was for me history.

So I went to Calcutta, by a 48-hour train journey from Mumbai (then Bombay), after reaching there by an Air India flight from Nairobi via boiling hot Aden, landing in the early hours of the morning to face the stifling, humid heat of the city.

Point is, I had never chosen Calcutta in my application, opting for Patna, Bombay or Madras.

From Calcutta, my karmic journey took me to New Delhi for my internship. I got married there, and Delhi became my second home. I know that when I reincarnate that will be in India…

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 14 March 2025