(IN THE SHIFTING SANDS OF TIME)
**HONOURING OUR ANCESTORS’ LEGACIES**
By Cliff Rajkumar
In the vanishing footprints of our ancestors’ defining legacies, we proudly stand in honour of their indomitable courage and fortitude to suffer the penury of indentured bondage with such selfless determination.
Harnessing strength and perseverance forged by the bonds of enduring friendships and adopted familial connections, they unite to lighten the anguish of shared struggles.
Turning the confined internment of their freedoms and painful exploitive working conditions into selfless acts of love, they empowered their bodies and minds to survive the despicable abomination of indentured serfdom.
Resilient and resourceful, they changed the course of history by embracing their ancestors’ life-affirming culture, traditions and ethos by labouring on with unshakable resolve to survive the inhumane conditions of indentured slavery.
Embracing the sage teachings and insights of their enlightened creed, our brave ancestors intuitively knew that education and economic empowerment would, one day, enable the liberation of their progenies. They subscribe to the idea that all bad things do pass with time.
As the dark clouds of oppressive abuse and molestations drift with time, revealing the magnificence of God’s creation in all its wondrous splendour, they become hopeful that change will come as the seasons come and go with renewal and hope.
Resisting the temptations and lure to embrace the colonizers’ religions, they cling, with pride, to the joyful happiness that filled their hearts to sing, dance and proudly celebrate their vibrant ancient festivals and time-defying traditions.
They proudly entreat and teach their offspring to abide by the timeless values of truth, honesty and the merits of enterprising resourcefulness and dedicated commitment in all our endeavours.
We were nurtured to see and appreciate that life is a sacred gift from the creator, deserving of equal respect, regardless of race or religion. I eagerly went to every temple and church in my village and learned about the Koran, the Bible and the Ramayana without conflict.
Indeed, my generation knows all too well the trials and tribulations of hardships. We were fortunate to have had the privilege to live a pastoral life, allowing us to gaze upon the sky and dream beyond the horizon of our village, which could no longer contain our high aspirations.
I am very grateful for the wise life lessons my ancestors and the wise village elders passed down to help me better understand the nuances of life’s ever-changing dynamics.
I cherished the freedom to roam and challenge my apprehensive fears. This helped me strengthen the principles and values I lived by and espoused.
Looking back, I am awed by the phenomenal contributions of our glorious ancestors, whose
life of service and sacrifice, born out of their sacred affirmation and reverence for life and communal harmony, was a great lesson in respecting and appreciating life’s many blessings.
Thankfully, we were fortunate to learn about the fascinating lives of our iconic heroes and the many Gods and Goddesses whose incarnations speak to their brave exploits, enriching our cultural and spiritual connection to the ancient history of our ancestor’s fascinating civilization.
Today, many of us still acknowledge and live by the profound holistic influence of self-awareness and the need for alignment with nature and the universe by paying attention to our actions, which is like a boomerang to reward and punish us for our good and bad deeds. Upon this template, I guide my thoughts to be compassionate and mindful of my actions.
Thankfully, we were fortunate to learn about and draw inspiration from incomparable epics like the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita, which reveal the most profound mystical truths about self-knowledge and the importance of seeing and knowing that divinity is our birthright.
Since time immemorial, the triumph of good over evil has shaped human civilizations on account of the horrific brutality foisted by exploitive conquests and oppressive subjugations, born out of our insatiable greed for fleeting wealth and power.
Historically, empires, conquerors, and dictators have risen and fallen. Still, truth always finds a way to restore itself with the courageous intervention of heroic brave-hearts and inspired saviours who will not yield to oppressive tyranny and merciless subjugation of the weak.
Our history reveals how our ancestral brave hearts toiled night and day under gruelling, back-breaking circumstances, prematurely wearing their bodies to the bone, so that we could rise from the ashes, like the phoenix, to soar into the deep beyond of space, sea and land.
Our ancestral brave-hearts lived simple, modest lives as serfs of their overlords, embracing the holistic and sage values and ethics of their civilizational customs, tenets and way of life, honed and inspired through spiritual inquiry, as seekers of self-knowledge and truth.
This legacy is still very much alive as we pay home homage and proudly celebrate their insufferable crossing of the unforgiving and turbulent Kala Pani, bated and lured by deception and false promises to labour in slave-like conditions in the punishing services of their greedy colonial masters.
Indeed! Where would we have been if our ancestors had not made the ultimate sacrifice and
ventured into the great unknown to build a life born out of their faith in God and themselves and paved the way for us to bloom on the merits of our resourcefulness, intelligence and talents?
Despite the incredulous back-breaking sacrifices that our virtuous ancestors made to enable our freedoms and the right to become political leaders and wealth barons, we have
turned our backs, with ingratitude, to acknowledge the defining role that they have played in changing the course of our destiny.
Shockingly, we have politicized, with heartless inconsideration, the most crucial evidence of not only our ancestral clan(s) but also of our genetic profile, which bears crucial DNA information and scientific biological markers that can help us to identify and understand the defining cellular constitution and influences, inherited from our ancestral genetic lineage.
As we debate and refuse to see the importance of safeguarding our ancestral records from evaporating into the dustbins of time, history will bear witness to our complicity in the dereliction of a sacred duty that was neglected, as being unimportant, to honouring the memories of our brave-hearts who made it possible for us to decry their sacrifices.
I strongly submit that our ancestral landing records represent and hold the key to who and what we are today. Sitting idly and watching their BLOOD-SOAKED FOOTPRINTS VANISH is a grave injustice to their memories and their invaluable monumental contributions to redefining the landscape and history of GUYANA…for the better
Cliff rajkumar.
February 8th, 2025
