Wow! If Mastana Bahar’s Sham Mohammed had to describe this assembly he would very likely have referred to it as Sundar Capra in all is glory and then there was another of our local orators who used to expatiate when thousands gathered to see him that his cup was filled and runneth over but while you do not match his numbers and my cup doesn’t even spill over you are exhilarating not necessarily in quantity but in quality as you are the epitome of transcendence; it makes me nervous that I am hosting such an iconic crowd; but I thank you for being here and for being who you are and for letting the world see what we have to offer.
Five thousand years ago, no less a person than Gautama the Buddha advised us to do it ourselves if whatever we are inspired to embark upon is to be achieved, completed.
This award idea emerged out of our belief, our Indo/Trini nihilistic belief based on bogus indoctrination that we are lesser mortals in this country’s ethnic configuration despite our knowledge that we are primus inter pares in almost every discipline that has to do with excellence and that you are here for that specific reason.
Whenever awards are given out by the State, we, the Indo/Trinis, agonise over the question if and how many from our community were cherry picked and if any at all were they not persons identified with Balisier House and so were recipients of patronage and not awards for excellence per se?
When I initiated this project, couple detractors felt I should have formed a committee to which I quoted the Buddha and that the old proverb, too many cooks spoilt the broth was an unassailable truism having been established that committees are generally obstructionist in nature and time-wasting.
In the year two thousand, I started a magazine called the Massala Star which featured outstanding Indo/Trinis who had been stars in their own right but were ignored by our mainstream media. For ten years the magazine featured dozens of success stories of that nature of persons whose ethnicity obviously did not qualify them for coverage in the traditional media. However, via my initiative, they got recognised in a glossy magazine of international standard and which they might still have as a keepsake in their archives.
More significantly, When Bhadase Maharaj felt in the nineteen fifties that the school system did not properly serve the Hindus of the country he embarked on a school building program that should have been recognised by the UN and the Nobel Committee simply because this was an undertaking done by one man but would redound to the ultimate benefit of an entire country.
And then there was Sat Maharaj starting up his own newspaper because he felt the mainstream newspapers turned a blind eye to the Indian presence in this country. And because worse was the case with the electronic media’s indifference to us, Sat fought the State up to the Privy Council to establish Jagriti radio and TV understanding that sometimes we have to do it ourselves.
I almost forgot that my Dictionary of Hindi Names published some years back was directly as a consequence of persons seeking esoteric Hindi names for their newborn and had no fixed source to go to and because I have come from a big family, there were always newborns for whom, helter-skelter, names were sought. From asking why somebody doesn’t do such a book, the question came to me, why don’t you do it Lester Orie, and so my book was published and which provided me with a precedence for initiatives like this. This undertaking, therefore, is not without genesis.
This ceremony today is something of a sequel to those seminal acts. It does what Hollywood does via the Academy awards, what the Nobel Prize does annually and in naming it after a Nobel Prize winner and not after some bird or flower, the award is undergoing a transcendental exaltation that recognises not only the recipients but the one after whom it is being named.
I thus commend all awardees in this first venture and feel most sincerely that you belong in this list; that via your names, you have set the bar high but know that with the many other deserving citizens yet to be recognised (which is planned for Indian Arrival Day 2024) you will find fair competition.
Thus, I close by quoting the great Robert Kennedy who said, “Some see things as they are and ask why, but I dream of things that never were and say why not?”
I thank you.