Daydreams Of Paradise - Still On Fiji Time...

It's been a few hours since we landed back in Incheon. Back in the dull, wintry chill of the Siberian winds that ravage the Korean peninsula, the balmy, warm and bright climes of the South Pacific seem to be a couple of light years away, on an alien planet in a distant galaxy...

Landing at Incheon Airport and we were greeted by the traditional Korean impersonal efficiency which is far cry from the warmth that the ever-smiling Fijians exude.

It is said your personality evolves to be a sum total of your experiences and your travels shape you in no small measure - you may return from your travels, but a little intangible and invaluable bit of the place that you have visited will always remain with you. 

This trip to the South Pacific was indeed one such epochal event in our lives. There is indeed something about Fiji in specific that will always stay with us forever, till we die.

The Fijian vibrancy is so perfectly reflected in the colourful banknotes that we used there...

It was particularly interesting to see how Indians who were brought into the Fijian islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu over a century ago, as labourers (girmitiyas), were persecuted, were at the receiving end of repressive colonial policies and then persecuted by a government dominated by ethnic locals, the vibrant community and prospered economically...

We were a bit startled to see an example of this in a jewelry shop in Denarau. Ornaments with the primordial Hindu symbol - Om - ॐ, were being sold. These were designed by a Fiji-Indian, Romil Patel...

The media too had a strong Indian imprint. The television has a significant Hindi content - both from India as well as local Fijian-Hindi content. And it appears to be really popular...

A news report on Amazon India in a local Fijian newspaper...

News on India's renewable energy revolution in Fiji Sun...

Obviously Bollywood stars are popular amongst all Fijians, cutting across racial lines, a clear example of India's soft power...

And then Titan watches seem to be quite popular in Fiji...

In Fiji, we did feel at home. You may attribute that to the significant presence ethnic Indians here, but we truly believe it was also because of the warmth of the Fijians...

As we settle down at home, it is hard to believe that we are back here in this icy urban "wilderness". It feels as though our consciousness is there, in sunny Fiji, and not here in Songdo. But thankfully, we have a weekend to recover from the weariness of the trip...

And to cheer ourselves, we treat ourselves to cups of hot chocolate - chocolate that I bought in Samoa...

Clearly we will enjoy the taste of the sunny Pacific for a bit more into wintry and snowy months that lie ahead of us...

Tales Of The Girmitiyas...

In our quest to explore the Indo-Fijian heritage, we entered the Indo Fijian Gallery of the Fiji Museum...

And it was interesting to note that the gallery had contributions from a Indo-Fijian company and the LIC of India, which incidentally has its outpost in the Pacific located here...

The Indian presence in this remote corner of the Pacific was the result of exploitation and machinations by the colonial British. Between 1879 and 1916, Indians were brought in on tenured agreements (giving the migrant labour, the name of girmitiyas), lured by a promise of abundance of wealth and prosperity. Nearly 60,000 people were brought in onboard 42 ships that made 87 voyages, between India and Fiji. Living conditions onboard were atrocious and many did not make it through alive. On reaching Fiji, the recruits were kept in quarantine on Nukulau Island before being allocated to the plantations. On the day of allocation, the recruits were formed into groups for plantation owners to transport them by boat to their destinations. The largest number of girmitiyas were allocated to the CSR Company, an Australian sugar company...

Besides sugarcane plantations, girmitiyas were made to work in tea plantations. Quite a few Sikhs came in, willingly, to serve in the police force, and they enjoyed slightly better conditions than the girmitiyas who spent long wretched hours working in plantations, in abject poverty and misery...

Houseboats of Indian traders...

A girmitiya hurricane lamp...

A hookah...

Seals of Brahmins from Madras...

Girmitiya women resting in the fields...

The quarantine station at Nukulau...

Indians playing checkers...

The accommodations for the girmitiyas were derogatorily called "coolie lines"...

A recreation of a Hindu prayer room...

Sikhs in Fiji...

Girmitiya women had a sense of style, wearing jewelry even while working!

Hindus in Fiji have proudly kept their heritage alive till this day...

Lord Krishna and the gopis...

Islam came to Fiji with Muslim girmitiyas...

A Hindu tapestry...

Gramophone records popularised Hindi film songs in Fiji in the 1900s...

Musical instruments of the girmitiyas...

A recreation of a girmtiya living quarter, with a charpoy or an Indian rope cot...

The prayer corner...

The kitchen area...

Girmitiya artifacts...

Implements and tools used by the girmitiyas...

Hard work defined the success of the girmitiyas who have emerged as the economically dominant community in Fiji...

One of the ships carrying girmitiyas from India, The Syria, was wrecked on Nasilai Reef on May 11, 1884 at around 8.30 pm. Of the 497 indentured men, women and children and crew of 43 onboard, 56 indentured Indian immigrants and three lascar (South Asian) crewmen lost their lives. The shipwreck was blamed on navigational mistakes and poor decision making by an inexperienced captain and crew led to the Syria running aground, further poor decisions being made by the Captain immediately afterwards adding to the disaster. When the news of the wreck had reached Suva, a rescue operation was immediately launched by Dr William MacGregor, the Chief Medical Officer and Acting Secretary for the colony. Nine boats set sail at around midnight and reached the site of the wreck shortly after midday on Tuesday. At this time the majority of the Indians were in the water on the reef, although many woman and children were still trapped on the ship...

With most of the passengers unable to swim, they were completely dependent upon their rescuers. Despite worsening weather and rough seas the rescue went fairly smoothly and the last rescue boat reached Nasilai village at about 8 pm, where they were received by the chief with warm food, water and shelter for the night before being transported to Nukulau quarantine station the next day. As there weren’t enough boats to transport everyone, the strongest 100 Indian men marched to Rewa, receiving food and fruit from Fijian men and women along the way...

In addition to the 59 people who died at Nasilai, another eleven died in the following fortnight. The loss of life would have been much higher except for the courage of the rescue crew, especially its leader Dr MacGregor who was awarded for his role, although writing that he felt hurt and ashamed that so many people had died while he had suffered nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises...

The Syrian tragedy quite really was a defining moment for the girmitiya community...

A cloth painting of an Indian farmer...

The bust of Dr. Timoci Bavadra, the Fijian prime minister who got deposed in a coup in 1987 was overwhelmingly pro-Indian. At that time, Fiji was a Commonwealth Realm, with the Queen as its head of state, represented in Suva, by the Governor General. Dr. Bavadra sought the Queen's intervention in resolving the crisis, but she refused to even give him an audience. That led to Fiji's expulsion from the Commonwealth and led to a political mess. Years later, the perpetrator of the coup, Sitiveni Rabuka regretted his role...  

Besides Indians, Chinese too came to Fiji in the 1800s, as traders in the search for commodities like sandalwood. Even though their numbers were far lesser than Indians, they too did make their mark in this remote Pacific outpost!

I Don't Want Nirvana! I Want Great Food, Always! -- Part XLI - Indian Flavours In The Heart Of The Pacific...

The exciting dance performances at Port Denarau gave us quite an appetite...

And we decided to head to Indigo, an Indian restaurant located right here...

Indigo has quite a friendly and warm ambiance. The restaurant is manned by a couple of very friendly Fijian-Indians, whom I salute as they keep the flag of Indian cuisine flying high  on this distant island, far away from the country that their forefathers, the girmitiyas called their motherland. And the chef here is Jitendra Kumar Singh, who comes in from Delhi...

And we succumbed to the temptation of having a vegetarian biryani that came alongwith some salan gravy...

I must say the biryani was very good but really exceptional. What we really enjoyed was the load of coriander garnish that we so much miss in Songdo...

And a tempered vegetarian raita was the perfect complement to the biryani...

As we devour every bit of the delicately flavoured biryani with joy, we can only say "I Don't Want Nirvana! I Want Great Food, Always!"...

Ni Sa Bula, Fiji, Nadi - नमस्कार फ़िजी, नांडी!

And so here I am in Nadi, Fiji. I had a 6-hour stopover here before I fly into Apia, Samoa...

After getting off the plane, I proceeded towards transit security check. And just there was a group of Fijian singers, serenading incoming passengers with a wonderfully beautiful song. Unfortunately I could not take a video of the song but found a similar video on YouTube, which embedded here...

I spent a while taking a good look at the terminal, checking out the shops in the departure lounge before finding a quiet corner to sit. Fortunately, I had newspapers for company, to spend the six-odd hours here...

Catching up on Fijian news...

It's Bollywood all the way in Fiji, talking of my favourite topic of India's soft power...

Fiji has a strong Indian diaspora community, a community that was tricked into coming to Fiji by the British colonials over 150 years back, with the promise of a prosperous life. The innocent village folk from Gangetic belt, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu were made to sign agreements that pushed them into indentured labour - the labour agreements gave them the term girmitiyas. And they were forced into hard labour - clearing the land for sugar plantations and then cultivating the land. These poor girmitiyas earned so little and barely survive. 

At the end of the term of their agreements, they had to buy their fare back home, which very few could afford. So the vast majority were forced to stay back even though they missed home and hated living in these harsh conditions. The colonists, in turn, got an assured supply of labour. The girmityas ended up shedding "Tears In Paradise" - there is a book by the same name, authored by a Fijian Indian, Dr. Rajendra Prasad that details the account of how his forefathers landed up in Fiji and the tortures faced by the girmitiyas here in Fiji. I was anguished by some of accounts detailed in the book.

Can that be termed as an historic human rights abuse that calls for an apology from the erstwhile colonists? Yes, I would say! And there is merit to calls by Shashi Tharoor for reparations.

Today I made that journey and see Fijian Indians everywhere here at Nadi Airport. Each one has an untold story, a painful story running through generations. The success of the diaspora here, despite the odds makes me salute them, respect them from the core of my heart!

Fiji makes moves towards solar energy...

All about the girmitiyas - a tale of lies, tears, despair and toil...

These stories of the migrants are gut-wrenching...

And Fijian Indians are a significant part of the Fijian population, constituting nearly 38 percent...

And Hindi has evolved into Fijian Hindi or Fiji Baat that is spoken by all Fijian Indians, irrespective of their origin within India...

Bollywood gossip is big here...

It appears my flight to Apia is getting delayed...

But I will have to hang around over here...

I plan to return here to Nadi on Friday. And Neeti will also fly in on Friday and we would spend a few days exploring Fiji. Till then vaka-viti or अलविदा!