Krishna is currently mentally disturbed thanks to his brother who sold the story that when the PETROTRIN refinery was in operation Krishna was consulted to trouble shoot whenever the plant was down. Not being a science student, I would simply leave that to rest.
It is becoming fashionable in our community to project a manufactured image of ourselves instead of accepting who we are. One young man who is not a police officer, but projects an image of one, took his mother to the doctor’s office and while waiting called a friend: “Sarge, this is corporal. Constable David wants a transfer out of the division. I think you could help.” His friend at the receiving end did not know if to make head or tail of what was being said.
Pretension is a characteristic of groups that have experienced deprivations in one way or the other but have failed to accept it as the challenges of living. Now that many of these individuals have sacrificed and improved themselves, they still go about life to cover the past with mansion and luxury vehicles. More distressing, they go out of their way to give their children the lifestyle they could not have afforded for themselves as kids.
In this haste to give their children a ‘better’ life than they had, their 25 years old son is treated like a prince with the parents as his maidservants. The prince is provided with an SUV, spending and fuel money with insurance all covered. Even the washing of the car is done by the maidservants with the prince left to indulge in his hoggish lifestyle … sleeping late into the morning, only to rise and venture out to party with his clueless friends.
Unemployed graduates cannot work in a gas station or a supermarket packing shelves. The pretentious parents prefer to have them at home playing with their cell phones and visiting the gym, a part of the script.
Santosh, a youth from India visiting Trinidad, after interacting with our youths from Trinidad, wondered if they have any goals. He found their lives to be “too casual and happy go lucky” which was not the norm in his country. This visitor did not realize that in our country we have a bitter past to blame for our poor performance and outright failure: colonialism, politicians, and teachers who ‘never liked us.’
Success for many parents is like hand me down clothes. It is something to gift to their children- a secondhand car and a few dollars to go clubbing. Such a culture does not produce winners but losers! It is the culture of short our children by denying them the opportunity to realize their fullest potential. It is what some researchers called out patient care.
When Anil and Mukesh Ambani returned from abroad after graduating with MBAs, they saw their father sitting at the dining table and not dressed for the office. Mukesh asked: “Dad! Are you not going to the office?” Dhirubhai responded: “No. I now expect you to take charge of the business.”
Our parents and grandparents toiled because they were immigrants who had to chart their destinies. Given no choice they had to labor in the fields for small wages to put food on the table and a roof above their heads. Today their grandchildren are now self-declared success stories in their myopic worl.
Our Indo Caribbean families must wake up to the competition around the globe and rise to the challenge. Indonesia, India, China, South Korea, and Vietnam are the new manufacturing centers of the world. Investors recognize the competitive edge of these nations and are investing in them.
Nevertheless, there is some progress, but I am ignorant of it until a friend said to me: “Hanoman, do you know that you are living in the Ariapita Avenue of central Trinidad?” What a discovery and comparison! So, I can now comfort myself that I am living in a part of the country where high class fetes are conducted until the wee hours of the morning!
I am happy that my neighborhood can provide such pretentious flight of success for struggling lawyers, unemployed graduates, public servants, tellers and store-clerks, all mingling in a refined and prestigious setting having their fill of nirvana.