He has known this mantra since his earliest days in elementary school. It was on a morning such as this when Bhoj Singh-Chatterpaul heard himself speaking these words and thinking about back home. His home, Guyana, was the land of many waters. The economy was plummeting back home as the British slowly withdrew from the country. Even the value of rice, a staple food crop, had dropped significantly in the market and with new land development legislations rampant in rural areas, even a proud man like Bhoj was forced to sell some of his land. After this, he began to consider the fantasies of living abroad. But because his children were still young, he swam alone where neither of his brothers dared.
Ten years ago, he could not have seen himself at 138 Dover court in the heart of Toronto, Canada. The small apartment was nothing compared to his 200 acre plot of land. It was suffocating most of the time. He had planned to work 12 hours per day in the summer to pay off the mortgage for the house he planned to buy for his wife and three children. But right now, his mind was on his stomach.
Even after 2 minutes in the microwave, his plate of rice and dahl was lukewarm in the centre. As he mixed them with his bare hands, he thought about how, with these same hands, he stirred cement to form the foundations for his own house back home. With his first handful, he realized he had forgotten the achar. Achar was that taste of home forever alive in his psyche. As long as his wife Leela sent that bottle of pickled and spiced green mangoes, everything tasted better. The velvety texture of lentils in the dahl, mixed with rice and bitter-spicy achar, stimulated his awareness of the morning.
He walked outside to taste the stale February air. Rivers of fresh snow covered the ground and the horizon was blurred. He checked his watch. 5:30 AM. Back home, even in February, the sun would at least be peeking over the mountain range, spreading a slight sliver of amber light over the horizon. But in Canada, Bhoj would not have the pleasure of seeing the sun rise or set—he left for work in blackness and returned to his apartment in blackness.
As he drove, he thought that if he was back home, he’d be tilling the soil. But since he was not, who would? If his eldest, Yoga, was older, he would have expected him to do it, but it is a big job for a boy of eleven years. He pondered briefly if maybe his brothers-in-law were tilling the soil on his land the way he did for theirs…
…and then he laughed.
Getting a job with Shully’s Industries was not hard because he spoke fluent English. He made window and door frames, aluminum siding and other home building supplies. The work was in fact easier because the machines did all the work. It was the same work, the same hours, the same people and the same problems six days a week for 8- 12 hours. But by the time he got home, there was no time to do anything else. Back home everything had a time and place. Seasons of work—tilling season, sowing season, selling season and building season— ensured that everything got done and by the end of the year. But in Canada you were no more than the machine you operate. A car. A cutting machine. A stove. Although prepared to do work, Bhoj had not forseen the monotony involved with factory work nor had he anticipated the amount of energy such work forced you to muster, as if you were always swimming against the current.
He came home in time for the evening news. The weather man, in his same gray suit, was giving the National Forecast. It was Bhoj’s first time seeing a full map of Canada. He did not see the forecast. Instead he saw three oceans and five lakes. He smiled. He knew from school that Canada was a British colony, but now he knew that Canada too was a land of many waters. For the first time in three months, he felt as if he never left home.
Author: Jacquelin Chatterpaul
