Shri Krishna Mandir
681 Broad Street, Hartford, CT 06106
About Me.
I was born in 1972 in New Amsterdam Hospital in New Amsterdam, Berbice, Guyana, South America. I am the seventh child of Bodenarain and Ajawatty Adhin. We lived in Jones Village, Port Mourant until we moved to America in January of 1979.
My Father is from Miss Phoebe, Port Mourant, and my Mother was born in Rose Hall, Corentyne; though she lived in Albiona and then moved to No. 67 Village before marrying and moving to Miss Phoebe.
America.
On January 17, 1979, me and my siblings moved to America. My first memory of being are in America is falling on the escalator in JFK. When we first arrived in New York from Guyana, it was one of the coldest winters on record. Our first night in America was spent with my Aja and Ajie in Jamacia, New York; after which we drove to Connecticut, which was to be our permanent state of residence ever since. There were just a few Indo-Caribbean families living in Connecticut at that time. Looking back, I could actually count on one hand the number of Indo-Caribbean familes living in Connecticut, that we know of. After a short stay with my Moussa and Moussie in Bloomfield, we moved to our first apartment on Oakland Terrace, Hartford. It was third floor attic apartment, but it was a big place.
Family.
Like most of our Indo-Guyanese, my mother and father had a 7th and 4th grade education, respectively. This is a bit odd as four of my six mamoos hold PhD's; and in reflection. As I reflect on how I can to where I today, I think that my parent's lack of education had a lot to do with it. The concept of melding into mainstream did not occur to my parent; which I am now very thankful for. Though we lived in America, when we entered our home, we were back in Guyana. It wasn't until I was in the 7th grade, having lived in America for over seven years, before I knew that the English word for 'daboo' was 'ladel' and the English word for 'belna' was 'rolling pin'. In fact, till this day very few people in my family actually use the word ladel or rolling pin. In our house, the duck was consumed, but the English was discarded. I must say that my parents are also a special breed of people. Who comes to America and raises eight children? That's unheard of now a days. For the most part, my father worked two jobs and my mother economized like nobody's business. In fact, she use to buy the cheap generic cereals that resembled the good stuff. When the box of the good stuff got low, she would add the generic stuff in the box with the good stuff. No one was the wiser - except for one morning when I woke up early to find her putting the cheap cereal in the good box - that's how I knew. We always had good close to wear at special occassions. In fact, if we weren't dressed properly, it was a problem. Till today, if my Mother feels that one of my nieces or newphews aren't dressed properly, somebody gets a call..."We raised eight children in America and all of them had proper close to wear...", you know the rest. I've received that katha one or twice...
MILITARY
I envy those students now a days that have their higher education planned out, because when I was in High School I had no idea what I wanted to do. After High School, I went to one semester of college and in January of 1991, I was off to Boot Camp in Fort Knox, KY.
In fact, after two and a half years of college, I changed my major. Then after college, I don't even work in my field of study. My BS is in Secondary Ed in Math and now I am auditor! So, after High School, I decided to join the military.
Experiences.
The first school that I attended in the US was Martin Luther King Jr Elementary School. The first time I walked to school, accompanied by father and siblings, it was a bitter cold day and I didn't have gloves. I actually slipped and had to use my hands to catch myself. By the time I reached school I was crying from being cold. A gentlemen ran my hands under cold water, which really helped me.
The experiences at Martin Luther really stayed with me for a very long time. The kids, and the teachers for that matter, were confused with us - the didn't know how to classify us. The late 70's and early 80's pre-dated the Indians owning 7-11's, and being doctors, so East Indians were not known yet. We weren't African American because our hair was straight. We weren't hispanic, because we could not speak Spanish. The idea of being Indian was beyond their comprehension at that time. The only Indians they knew were the Native Americans. So they would make fun of us by making Native American sounds, call us chief, etc. I remember one time (and I'm not sure how I knew this), I was trying to explain to some of the kids that Christopher Columbus mistakenly thought that he was in India when he arrived in America and he erronesouly called the Native Americans Indians. My words were lost to them as they mockingly joined in a rain dance. I'm not sure what was worse, the way that were made fun of us, or the way that they misprounced our names; and it was misprounced differently each time! The students were mesmerized by our hair. They used to touch it all time and comment on how soft it was. Some wanted to know if our hair was real.
Later in 1979, another Indo-Guyanese family started attending Martin Luther King Jr. Elemantary School with us. They were a family of and we were a family of eight. Even though they moved from the North End of Hartford that year, we still kept in touch with them and we used to have family picnics together, etc.
While I was in the second grade, another Indo-Guyanese boy joined my class. I lost touch with him because we left Hartford at the end of that year.
From very early on, me and my siblings knew that we were different from everyone else. We were always the only Indians everywhere we went and really didn't have many others to share our experiences with. We didn't assimilate into American life; which helped us to keep our identity. In High School there was a small Indo-Caribbean population; which was a little better, It wasn't until I returned home from the military, when the Indo-Caribbean population had blossomed, did I begin to fell part of a community.
When the teachers at our school found out that I had a twin sister, they would make me and my twin sister stand back to back to see who was taller. This stopped becoming cute when my twin sister became taller than me. I remember the teachers actually hitting us at Martin Luther King. The gym teacher had a big paddle and use to make you touch your toes and then wack us on our behinds. My first grade teacher use to tape up the students' mouths if they spoke too much. I don't remember getting that done to me. My second grade teacher actually had a yard stick covered with masking tape. I recevied quite a few blows from that stick.
In 1981, we moved from Hartford to Bloomfield. Having already established ourselves in Hartford, we now had to relive the experiences of explaining who we were and re-establishing ourselves in Bloomfield. The population was somewhat diverse in Bloomfield School; African Americas, Causacians, some Hispancies, and some Asians (my family). I remember channel eight use to sometimes have after school specials about different topics. This one afternoon special was about an Indian foreign exchange student who came to live with an American family. With the exception of my family, I think that this is one of the biggest exposures that some of the kids in our town had with respect to Indian people. One on part of the program, the Indian girl goes to a party and is asked to dance. She doesn’t know how to dance American style, so she starts to dance Indian style. I remember one of my sisters telling us that the next day in school everyone was asking her questions, especially if that’s the way the she danced. I don’t remember how she answered.