Listen to your parents: girmit descendant
“IAM excited to have been told to attend the Girmit day celebrations for being a descendant of a girmitya.” This was relayed by Shiu Narayan, 80, who hails from Wairebatia in Lautoka, as he applauded the Government for providing everyone with a public holiday to commemorate Girmit Day.
“My grandparents travelled to Fiji from Andhra Pradesh in India and lived in Sabeto, Nadi where they worked under the Girmit system and where my father was born,” Mr Narayan explained.
“They moved to Field 40 in Lautoka where I was born and my grandfather passed away at the age of 115-years while my grandmother passed away at 95-years of age.”
“Later we moved to Natabua where I was enrolled at Natabua Primary School from class 1 to 8 then we moved to Wairebatia in Lautoka in the year 1958,” he added.
Mr Narayan said that he used to be quite small when his parents used to walk about seven-kilometres from Field 40 with his grandmother to work at Wairebatia, in Lautoka.
“I know from descendants of the Girmitiyas that our forefathers used to have a very tough life and have gone through so many challenges,” he said.
“My grandparents relayed that the Columber, field officers and government workers used to behave very badly with the
Girmitiyas.”
“Their living conditions were not good and they used to take their children to the farm as they worked and also get hit by the Columber,” he added.
He revealed that his grandparents were single when they left India and met on the boat. They worked together on the farm and then got married.
“They used to tell us stories of India in why and how they travelled from India to Fiji, the challenges they faced, how they endured the long journey and the duration it took them to get here,” Mr Narayan said.
“I recall my grandmother used to have a lot of mohar around her neck and it got distributed between the ladies in the family and there used to be some money from back then as well.”
“My grandfather used to be very healthy and he comes from a farming background. They showed me various farming tools they used to use on the farm which we don’t get to see anymore and hardly anyone would see a tractor on a farm,” he added.
Mr Narayan said that he recalls being in class three and used to listen to his grandparents talk in their mother tongue which he grew up listening to.
“I have visited India and my brother has actually visited our families in Andhra Pradesh who do grape farming for a living,” he revealed.
“There are no elders alive in the family and only the grandchildren live there so it was quite difficult to make them understand our relation as they only speak in Telugu language.”
“There is a place called Chittoor jhilla where my grandparents are from but they did not know each other then,” he added.
Mr Narayan said that his dad had one brother and two sisters and all of them have passed at an old age while he had four children and two of them have passed away.
“I have about eight-acres of land and usually able to plant about 210 tonnes of sugarcane and able to sell about $6,000 worth of it which supports my livelihood and last year I harvested about 70 tonnes of sugarcane,” he relayed.
“I would like to urge the younger generation to listen to your parents because then you will go a long way in life and at the same time, look after them as they have sacrificed a lot to raise you,” he advised.