see through our eyes, not your ears.

In Mauritius you see Bihar at every corner

Kauleshwar. Yes, Kauleshwar is my family name and I am a Bihari.” Sitting on an inflated boat by the beach in Mauritius, Guru Kauleshwar was getting nostalgic.

“What does Bihar look like? Is it very different from Mauritius?” Kauleshwar was curious. He has never been to Bihar, but he knows his roots lie in the Bhojpur district of Bihar.

More than 150 years ago, his great grandfather left behind a sleepy village to seek better prospects in an island 5,826 kms away. The agent from Bhawanipur in Bengal had promised him largesse and a bright tomorrow. Clinging to that promise and hope, Kauleshwar boarded a ship in Calcutta for his journey to Mauritius, a journey that took eight long weeks, the weeks stretching painfully because of the wrath of the sea and the callousness of the British sailors on the deck.

Tired, yet clinging to hope, Kauleshwar must have walked up the 14 wharf steps on the Coolie Ghat at Port Louis (now Apravasi Ghat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site) only to find his dream crumble. In one ominous moment, Kauleshwar became an indentured laborer, received an Immigrant Number and ported to toil on the sugar plantations of the monied British. All Bihari stories in Mauritius have the same plot, the story beginning with the abolition of slavery. The Dutch had introduced sugarcane to this faraway island and with time Mauritius changed hands from Dutch to French to the British.

With slaves freed, hands were needed for the sugarcane fields and the agents in Bhawanipur scrounged the Bhojpur district for laborers. The first batch of coolies (indentured laborers) from Bihar was huddled in a ship called Atlas that anchored in the Apravasi Ghat on November 2, 1834. That fateful day changed lives for many.

Not one, two, not hundreds, not a thousand, between 1834 and 1910, nearly 4.5 lakh Biharis landed in Mauritius to become indentured laborers. The monthly salary: Rs 5 for men, Rs 4 for women. On arrival, each immigrant was lodged in the port for 48 hours, registered, given an Immigrant Number, a blanket and utensils. And then their ordeal began, rising with the sun to toil in the fields. When their five-year contract expired, some laborers returned to Bihar; most chose to stay back. Drive around in Mauritius and you would see Bihar at every corner. There is a Bihar Roots Foundation, a Bhojpuri Samaj, tiny temples in each home and if you listen carefully, you would decipher Bhojpuri from the Kreole that most natives speak.

Dr Vijaye Haulder, deputy director, Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority, traces his roots back to Bihar. “One day I want to go back to the village in Bihar from where my ancestors came from,” says Haulder who has traced details in the records stashed in the Mahatma Gandhi Institute. In Aventure du Sucre, a sugarcane museum, one can see pictures of the early Bihari settlers, their registration sheets sepia with time and their history muddled with incorrect spellings and missing last names. I met Usha Motah on the Flat Island.

She insists she is a Bihari, but her family name intrigued me. I have not heard of a Bihari with a Motah surname. “But there are several Motahs in Mauritius,” she informs. Perhaps the names were misspelt by the British, probably a Mehta became a Motah, a Raghuveer metamorphosed into Rogbeer. Geeta Ghanshyam, who teaches Hindi in a school, is sure that Ghanshyam was her great grandfather’s first name.

“He must have been registered merely as Ghanshyam, perhaps no surname was registered and later the first name turned into our last name.” Several miles and several generations apart, the Bhojpuris of Mauritius have not forgotten their way of life. During Mahashivratri, devotees wear white and carry the kanwar (holy water) to the Shiva Temple, the second largest Shiva statue in the world. On Holi, every household is laden with the aroma of crisp malpua and spicy ghugni (black gram in gravy) invariably comes with puffed puris.

Most Bhojpuris wear a saree and the traditional orange vermillion. And yes, at home they still speak Bhojpuri; a Bhojpuri that is laced with a smattering of Kreole and English. As I walked down the steps of the Apravasi Ghat, I thought of the countless Biharis who came to Mauritius in search of a better life. Some dreams were fulfilled, but most crumbled under the atrocities of the British masters. And ironically, when Mauritius became a republic, it was a man with Bihari lineage who became the first prime minister. For Sir Sivasagar Ramgoolam was the great grandson of a girmitya (an indentured labourer) from Bihar. That moment, for the Biharis, destiny came full circle. (www.deepblueink.com)

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