Indian parents in this country are obsessed with their children becoming doctors so much so that those who are in other fields are deemed ‘children of a lesser god.’ It is not uncommon to hear relatives telling you that they want their daughters and sons to study medicine. When that is said the best is to wish them luck!
Bhadase Sagan Maraj, the founder of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), won the elections of 1958 to form the West Indian Federation and the Local Government Elections the following year. Maraj had no degree and was definitely not a medical doctor or the holder of a PhD like Dr. Eric Williams, his political opponent.
Maraj had to abandon school in Form 2 at the Pamphylia High School (now Presentation College in Chaguanas) after his father was murdered and his life was threatened. His curriculum was now survival and using his wits and muscles. Maraj toiled and rose to become a millionaire at age 30 and looked beyond his personal accomplishments to identify with the trials and struggles of his people.
Maraj provided leadership to the sugar cane workers, united the Sanatanist Hindus under the banner of the Maha Sabha in 1952 and went on to build more than 30 schools throughout the sugar cane belt to educate young Hindu boys and girls. Maraj never stood idly by when mas men wanted to depict Hindu gods in mas bands on the streets of Port of Spain. His strong stance against this attempt to desecrate the Hindu faith forced the intervention of Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams who made a public release in the media threatening fines and imprisonment for any portrayal of gods and goddesses of a living religion.
Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul was another portrayal of sheer determination and grit to succeed against all odds. Despite his poverty and hardships, Naipaul persevered in his ambition to distinguish himself as a writer. After getting his Bachelor of Arts from Oxford, he said that he had to unlearn all that he learned before he could begin to write. Today Naipaul is rated among the top writers in the English language.
Naipaul is very much relevant today. Recently I viewed The Mystic Masseur (movie) and realized that the short comings and failings then continue to live with us today. Any little achievement makes us contemptuous of our heritage and history. In the concluding part of the movie, Pandit Ganesh told Partap that Oxford would eat him up and appealed to him to return to Trinidad to serve the people. Even Ganesh, after his sojourn in politics and brief visit to London, saw his future in serving the people.
Basdeo Panday understood the need to serve the community to bring meaning to one life. He did exactly that and the entire nation, friends and foes alike, all agreed that he was a man of the people. Panday willingly ‘slept with the devil’ to remove the PNM from office, even when it meant dissolving his political party (ULF) to give leadership to ANR Robinson who had a minority of two seats in Tobago. His firing by Robinson catapulted him to form the UNC which later brought him to power.
Several mothers and fathers have toiled to raise their families and they are great in their own right. Scores of others have worked tirelessly to preserve our dharma and heritage against all odds. Pandits wore dhotis and kurtas and rode their bicycles to the distance parts of the country side to plant the flags of dharma. Our farmers were not less in their efforts to serve the nation.
Our attitude to work is more important than the profession we profess. Swami Vivekananda said that “greatness lies in the worm that goes about its duty.” In the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna admonished Arjuna to perform his role as a warrior and concluded that yoga is excellence in action. Let us therefore urge our children to excel in whatever they are doing and debunk the culture to give one profession higher social status above another.