Dear Editor,
Dr Brinsley Samaroo was already a towering intellectual when I first met him and as if knowing how intimidating being known as such could be to students, almost immediately he broke the ice between him and his class by sharing this anecdote of how a young boy in India daily saw his father perform puja only after having securely tethered their house cat near the altar where the ceremony took place.
In following the tradition of the way of the world where millions just accept without questions things of a spiritual nature and live the unexamined life, the boy never questioned the tying of the cat near the altar but concluded it was an aspect of the ritual – that having a cat nearby somehow added to the holiness of the moment.
And then one day the boy’s father passed away and as is not unusual, the cat, too, not long after passed away. The morning ritual was now in the hands of the boy whose main challenge was not how to conduct the puja as efficiently as his father did but how to so do it without the cat that his father dutifully kept at hand. So hither, thither and yon, the boy went in search of a cat that looked a carbon copy of his father’s cat and Voila! He found one after searching and searching here, there and everywhere.
The boy was now ready to conduct the puja in continuation of his father’s tradition never finding out that his father tied his cat only to keep it at bay and from trampling upon the altar during his puja time and not for any sacred reason.
So everybody giggled at this stand-up moment of comedy and Dr. Samaroo in an instant transitioned from the feared lecturer one thought he was to just Brinsley thereafter.
And thus, marked the beginning of the emergence of an institution fashioned out of flesh and blood called Brinsley that was parallel to the brick and mortar one called the UWI. Brinsley grew into such an institution that when one said one was going to St. Augustine, it was naturally assumed one was going to see Brinsley for why else one was going there?
Even if you had other business to attend to, it was very likely one would come across him as he was ubiquitous enough to be described as omnipresent. When I came across him, bounced him up, he always treated me as a long lost friend and not as if I were just a small fry trying to find my way in paradise. Long ago, he had made the generous offer to me that whenever I wrote something I must pass it to him so that he could have a read and offer me his opinion. When I did the Jai Ramkissoon biography, to save me from traveling from Princes Town to St. Augustine, he met me half way where I passed over the manuscript to him and to which he gave me his opinion within days. This was a big deal, as most persons tell me, yes, they will look at what I write and let me know what they think in a day or two but after a year or two later I would still be without their precious view. So Brinsley giving me his opinion within days despite who he was, despite his busy schedule, proved that he was a man amongst men. I feel the need to say that having read the Jai bio, he ranked it as the best local one he had read.
That, Brinsley continued to sustain our relationship, just last year, he took time to write a review of my book, “Conversations with an Atheist” and although he admitted it was not easy reading, he did the painstaking needful and proceeded to write a review that reflected the scholar he was.
There was, indeed, something immortal about Brinsley which makes it surreal to think of UWI without him, without him strolling its grounds going from one department to another. But as Cicero said, “Let us endeavour to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” Brinsley did justice to that quotation as few ever did as we accept his departure.
L. Siddhartha Orie