I write to recognize and celebrate Aunty Betty unwavering moral compass (integrity and honesty) and resilience (withstanding pressure) in the face of challenges of raising a family all by herself albeit with some initial support from her parents Mahase and Bhagwandai.
Aunty Betty was a godly woman in the Arya Samaj faith of her father and mother, religious principles she held till death. She found her purpose in life through her faith and her culture, drawing strength from both. She didn’t have detractors or enemies.
As a youngster, I remember Aunty Betty very well. We grew up in the same environment of Ankerville, Port Mourant. She is (was) at least twenty-three years my elder with some 17 years the junior of my father who was born in 1920. She died on June 27, 2024 at age 87. She had two brothers Arjune and Buddy and a half brother Neal from her father’s first marriage.
Aunty Betty and I have a common ancestry. Her aja, Gurbatore (from Ghazipur, UP) and her aji, Amru Rai (a Brahmin from Azamgarh, UP) are my par (great) grandparents from my father’s side of the large family. I visited the gao or villages where both of her grandparents hailed. Aunty Betty also visited India but was not as fortunate as me to set foot on the soil of the villages of her grandparents. I related my experience to her and about whom I met among extended (distant) families (of Gurbatore and Amru) in both Ghazipur (Kusmi gao) and Azamgarh (Siaraha gao) districts. It was a touching, emotional experience, the like and the feeling of which cannot be described but can only be felt. The entire village came out to welcome me and my siblings when I visited the first time almost 20 years ago. I went back almost annually to re-unite with distant families and performed a puja one year and fed the entire villages. Whenever I visited, I took gifts. I celebrated Holi and Diwali in the villages with my distant cousins and villagers on a couple of occasions. And those experiences were also emotional and memorable.
My aja (Mahadeo or Barkha bhai, the eldest who had four sons Ramrattan, Baldat, Balraj, Eva, Sambhu and a daughter Eva) and Aunty Betty’s father Mahase were brothers and their other brother was Rajaram and sisters Naurangya or Naranjie (senior Muneshwer’s mother) and Sancharie (Aunty Bethlyn mother who was also mother of Uncle Hindu, Uncle Baljit, Aunty Lilmatee, Aunty Phulmatee, Aunty Golin, Uncle Bodo, among others). All of them were Bound Yard and Ankerville bred. I always called her father, Mahase, aja, a term of loving and respectful family kinship that I also used for Rajaram; Mahase took a great likeness to me and visited Aunty Bethlyn shop almost daily to read the newspapers. Aunty Betty referred to my father, Baldat as her bhaiya (elder brother) and always called my mother bhoujie (meaning sister in law). She did same to her other cousins. Mahase did some tailoring as well; a profession of my father who was also a farmer cultivating rice and sugar cane and attended to cows and a horse of the extended Gurbatore/Amru family. My father learned tailoring from old Muneshwers.
I became familiar with Aunty betty when I wasn’t even a teenager; I used to visit her ‘beauty’ variety shop regularly purchasing various products (thread, cloth, etc.) for my parents taylor shop and for Aunty Bethlyn (my father first cousin – his poa daughter) where I spent time helping to run her dry goods store obliquely opposite the Training Center’s hostel (Kresh) in Port Mourant. Aunty Betty’s father set up the business for her and the family on the side-line (‘Dispensary’ and Shivala) dam in Ankerville, heading towards the backdam canefields. Ghurbatore was quite wealthy and passed on significant amounts of money to her three sons and two daughters. The house and shop built by Mahase through Ghurbatore stands within a minute walk to the bridge that links Boundyard with Ankerville. Our ancestors from India were bounded in Boundyard Plantation Port Mourant estate. All of our relatives were from that area before re-locating to other parts of the Corentyne and eventually North America and UK.
Like Aunty Betty, I was born and raised in Ankerville. She took a great fondness and likeness for me. She and her mother engaged me a lot whenever I visited the store. And before I migrated in March 1977, I went to see the family to say goodbye. And like she, we both migrated to New York at different times – for betterment. I came as a youngster for tertiary education at age 16 in 1977 and she came about four years later (1981). She went with her mother, aji Bhagwandai, to Minnesota where she spent a year at the home of her brother Uncle Buddy. She engaged Dilip Tiwari, our cousin, son of Pandit Bangat and Aunty Golin of Tain, quite a lot. They reminisced about life in Guyana. After a year in Minnesota, she went to Houston to be with her moth’s relatives. Her mother remained in Minnesota with her son Uncle Buddy who had sponsored them for permanent residency. After six months in Houston, Aunty Betty and her mother moved to Brooklyn where her daughter Molly and son Bobbie had just arrived from Guyana as permanent residents in 1982. Betty went into employment in the garment district of Manhattan working for over thirty years. I would regularly meet her on the train as I traveled to my teaching assignment. I also encountered her at almost every public cultural and religious event in Brooklyn (Arya Samaj and Sanatanist) including Indian Arrival at Smokey Park, in mandirs, outdoor Phagwah and Diwali programs, and so many other cultural concerts.
In New York, I went to an institutional university setting (CCNY and NYU) for formal education and academic certification (degrees), and she had work and family experience that you can’t obtain in a university; she deserves a PhD for her family experience raising two children as a single parent and taking care of her parents as well. I would meet her regularly on the (J) train as she commuted to work from Brooklyn to the Garment District in Manhattan.
I always admired Betty for strength, courage, industriousness, and independence. In Guyana, she ran a business as the sole breadwinner of the family and single parent household. She was quite successful. In New York, she got her daughter Molly married in August 1984 to Ron, a respectable gentleman, the kind of husband any female would desire; he has been kind and generous to the family. The wedding was the first open, public Hindu function I attended in America. There was loud chatney music and lots of bhojan food. Guests came from Minnesota, Houston, Florida, etc. Molly received a great send off.
In Guyana and in America, Aunty Betty never seemed to be angry and even in anger one won’t know. She always smiled. I remember her as gentle, kind, compassionate, strong, warm, charming, loving, respectable, understanding, loving, patient, kind, compassionate, wise. As among the youngest of the many cousins or grandchildren of Ghurbatore, she respected her elders referring to them with kinship terms such as bhaiya, dada, didi, cha cha, mamoo, cha chi, mami, etc. She was a simple, humble, honest business woma trained by her mother and father who had business roots. She had a reassuring presence with her mother in Guyana and in America, of whom she took great care, as well as for her two children and later the grand kids. Her father died in Guyana. Aunty Betty’s mother, aji, passed away sometime around 1986; I went to the funeral rites at Grace Funeral Home with my parents and my sister Mala. That old lady was quiet and reserved just like her daughter.
Aunty Betty will always be remembered for her simplicity, humorous talk, and hard work. And she was most beautiful. It was an honour and a privilege for me to have as my cousin and to know Aunty Betty. She was well respected by relatives and the extended kin. The great number of people who attended her funeral was testament about the kind of person she was. She was not a known celebrity. However, her departure touched us all, extended family members and cousins.
Rest well Aunty! You will not be forgotten and for years to some we will reminisce about our encounters with you. Your smile was woven into your life and we remember that beautiful face, a beauty that is in the clan of the Gurabtores and Amrus. You were beautiful (inside and outside), warm, charming.
You have left memories for your two children and several grandchildren and to the Ghurbatore/Amru clan.
