Read Ravi the Unknown Prince Online
Authors: Rookmin Cassim
Ravi the Unknown Prince
A STORY ABOUT AN ORPHAN BOY WHO GREW UP IN POVERTY AND LATER DISCOVERED THAT HE WAS A PRINCE.
HE MADE A SUCCESSFUL CAREER FOR HIMSELF, ALTHOUGH HIS JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE WAS A STRUGGLE AND A ROCKY ONE.
MANY YEARS LATER HE MET WITH HIS AGEING WEALTHY UNCLE WHO WAS LOOKING FOR HIM FOR NINE LONG YEARS.
HE REVEALED THE TRUTH ABOUT THEIR ANCESTORS AND ASKED RAVI FOR ONE FAVOUR.
TO TAKE OVER HIS KINGDOM FOR A PIECE OF LAND WHICH RAVI HAD OWNED.
HIS DYING WISH WAS TO BE BURIED NEXT TO HIS MOTHER IN THE FAMILY GRAVE YARD.
RAVI GRANTED HIS UNCLE THAT WISH AND TOOK OVER THE KINGDOM OF MANAOS.
A FICTITIOUS STORY SET IN AMERICA, ENGLAND AND SOUTH AMERICA, THE NAMES OF THE PEOPLE, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND EVENTS PORTRAIT IN THIS BOOK ARE ALL FICTIONS.
I
was ten years old when a plague took place in my village and wiped out my entire family, my parents and my two siblings.
How and why I survived God only knows. I continued to live in my parent’s house on the West Coast of Berbice, a small fishing village by the sea.
We owned the house and the two plots of land it stood on, and ten acres of field land on which my father would grow rice for his family to eat for the whole year.
In the back yard, my mother had a small kitchen garden, where she grew vegetables and herbs. She kept chickens and ducks, which I continued to look after.
As well as two rows of a dozen coconut trees, a couple of mango trees, banana plants, one lime tree, and many guava bushes.
My father was a carpenter by trade; in his spare time he would make wood furniture, such as rocking chairs, tables and wardrobe for our community who would place orders.
He would work on them before the rice season began and afterwards.
I would sit and watched him work in the back yard, he was skilful at what he did; he could turn his hand to anything and it would look good.
I missed them a great deal, especially my mother. I had to watch them die one after another and saw them laid to rest.
Sometimes I wish I had gone with them, but my life was spared for some unknown reason.
The entire village was almost completely wiped out, except for a handful of survivors of which I was one among them. I had to take care of myself and grow up quickly.
The elders and people from the neighbouring villages were helpful to a certain point, but they did not interfere in one’s daily life and upbringing.
My parents were Hindu and my great grand-parents arrived from India along with round 1.2 million indentured labourers, who were transported from India on work permits.
They were placed into various European colonies in the West Indies, the Indian Ocean, South Africa, South America, Fiji Islands in the South Pacific and in other countries around the Northern and Southern hemisphere.
On my great grand-father’s side, he and another brother left together; but some-how they got separated. He ended up in Berbice, and his brother went on to Surinam or Dutch-Guiana.
My father, Arjuna had told me that his grand-father Mohana, told them that his brother Anan from Surinam went back to India after five years.
He found out from other ship-loads of workers when they arrived at Bath Estate, where he used to live and work.
Mohana had tried to return to India after his five-year contract had ended, only to be told that his papers were lost, which meant he could not return to his home-land in India.
He was despondent and felt great regrets for not seeing his home-land again and the family he had left behind.
He got married and settled down to a woman he later found out was from a royal house-hold in India.
She would not tell anyone of her story why she left India, or whether she ran away; they had two sons and a daughter from that marriage.
He was from the Brahman Caste and he read Sanskrit, and they both spoke Hindi.
My parents worshipped many gods on a picture hanging on our wall. They said that the cow was sacred, and that was the reasons they did not eat its flesh.
They followed the traditions of their ancestors which were handed down to them and to pass on to future generations that were yet to come.
Freedom of Religion was practised by three faiths, in this vast country of South America, 86,000 sq miles, and which consists mainly of forests, savannahs, swamps, wild vegetation, rivers, and all kinds of wild and exotic animals.
Christianity was introduced by missionaries from America and Britain, and was imposed mainly on the black slaves.
Hinduism and Islam were brought over with the labourers from India. The Hindus built Temples; Muslims built Mosques and the Christians built Churches.
The three main faiths united the people in their work places and in schools and they lived together in harmony.
However they did not inter-marry as it was taboo for a Muslim man or woman to be married outside his or her religion and vice versa.
Being alone was a very daunting experience. In the evening I would go down to the sea, which was a part of the Atlantic Ocean and was at the back of my home.
I would walk past the wild mangrove trees with its popped-up roots interwoven together to form a huge mass, and sit on a log of wood which was brought in from the sea and anchored itself at the edge of the white sandy beach which stretched for many miles along the coastline.
No one knew where it had come from and what distance it had travelled to get to this place and to embed itself at this spot.
Wild trees grew around it to form a shade. On that stretch of unspoilt beach I would sit and look at the swell of the ocean, and ponder at the creations that surrounded me.
There were various plants and colourful birds; the sky above, the ocean with all kinds of fish, and a pair of manatee that roamed those waters. Where they came from was my question. Definitely not by chance.
The aeroplanes that flew across the ocean on a daily basis were either going on to Surinam, Cuba, Brazil, or some other South American countries.
They were taking cargos, while others were ferrying passengers to a holiday destination or on a business trip.
As I sat back and rested my head on a tree trunk I would think of going to distant and far away places.
Maybe one day when I could afford it I would like to travel the world and to meet different types of people and to speak different kinds of languages.
As a country boy and a poor orphan I could only dream; I thought there was no harm in dreaming.
Perhaps the adventure books I had been reading suddenly brought about those wild and imaginary ideas into my head.
I would catch fishes, crabs and shrimps with my father’s net, which I would roasts on a wood burning stove to eat.
During my fishing trip, I would swim with the pair of manatee or a sea cow, when they arrived at high tide at certain times of the year.
They were friendly mammals; no one knows where they came from and where they went.
Some days I would barter with a shoal of fishes, for a square meal of rice with meat and vegetables from an old Muslim woman who lived three doors away from me.
School was free up to standard six, which I attended regularly with the remaining children who had survived that natural disaster, and those from the other villages.
I wanted to make something of my life when I grew up. My teacher, Miss Price, taught us arithmetic and the English language from books made in England as we were under the British rule at that time.
One day she said to me, “Ravi Latchman you are good with numbers, and I think you should pursue a career in this field.”
I did not fully understand what she meant. I would give her a few fish each week just to borrow a text book and a few story books from her collection.
Grace Price was a tall and elegant black woman. Her grand-parents and many others like them in the village were captured from Africa and brought over as slaves to work for their white masters.
They built railways; dug canals and trenches, and grew crops of sugar- cane until slavery was abolished. Price was their master’s name, and they inherited it.
So far none of my relatives from either side of my parents came to look for me.
I knew my father was frequently visited by a man he called Bhai, [brother] and suddenly that visit stopped.
Two years later, now aged 12, a Muslim family moved in three doors from me.
The old woman, who used to live in that house, had left to move in with her granddaughter in the Corentyne area, another part of the county of Berbice.
She once told me her grand-parents came from the West Bihar region in India.
She would let me sleep in her house when my parents first died and I was frightened to be alone. She was warm and friendly and I called her grand-mother.
I would give her fish, do her shopping, light her lamp, as there were no electricity in those days; bring her fire-wood, and she would gave me food in return.
I learnt to speak Hindi with her, as she spoke no other languages, and she taught me to cook rice and other types of food.
She told me that I should not be afraid, that the One who created me would always protect me.
One day I brought her some fresh eggs and saw her prostrate on a mat she said belonged to her father.
Afterwards I asked her who was she praying to; she told me her God, the One and only.
I then asked her to tell me about her God. She said she did not know much, but I must put my trust in Him.
I was sad when she left; it was as though, everything I had loved and cared for was leaving me behind.
A family of nine had moved into her house. There were four girls and three boys with their parents.
Their father drank rum and he was not kind to his children and their mother when he was drunk.
One girl named Muna she was in the class below me. She was friendly, and would follow me home after school.
Whenever she was being bullied because of the colour of her hair, I would stick up for her like a big brother would do. Her other siblings, would called me Ravi the orphan boy.
Their mother was always looking for something to cook to feed all the hungry children.
One day, one of my best laying hens went out and she never came back in the evening. I was so upset and I told Muna during our recess period.
She said they ate it and my first reaction was to hit her until she explained that they had nothing to eat that evening.
Her mother had to cook that fowl for nearly one hour to get it tender because it was so tough.
“You stole from an orphan”, I said.
“I did not steal your bird,” she replied, “my brother Shazam did. He crept next door to that empty waste-land and saw the fowl and caught it. We did not know that it belonged to you.”
“Your religion told you not to steal, is that true?” I questioned.
“True, but we do not practice our religion. You saw what my father is like, he got rid of his sister to move here,” she answered.