Staffrider Vol.3 No.4 Dec-Jan 1980 - DISA

THE CANE IS SINGINGBY NARAIN AIYERThe cane is singing. All along it issinging: to the left, from where I am sittingin this train on my way to the bigcity to visit my children, to the rollingland where the sea begins, and to myright, into the interior where the sunsets. The cane is singing, but it is a sadrefrain that the cane is singing.They first landed on these shores in1860. Some were eager to come. Otherswere eagerly brought. That is why thecane is singing now. The mills are grindingand the sugar is pouring down thechutes, the quotas are increasing and onil return from Durban this train willhave many men from the Transkei in itsmany bellies, coming to this singingsugar-cane land. The chairman of theBoard reports a net profit, after tax, oftwo comma five. Sweet melody to theshareholders. No shares for me, for myfa her and his father before him and mychildren and their children after them.I-or us only the bitter notes of this sadsong, this soul-searing song that the caneis singing.Some were indentured. Others werepassenger immigrants. They came andthey worked. Nay, they toiled and theyslaved till their loin cloths were meltedoff their sweaty, swarthy backs. Theholes in which they lived were theirhomes but there was ample space in thecorners, if there were corners, to storemaster's ration of dholl, wood and coal.They awoke in the morning and raisedtheir hands to the rising sun — the sunlose from the East. That is where theycame from. Would they go back there?Mo, they must pick up the hoe, thesickle and the cane knife and go to themaster's farm. They must cut and thrustand dig and trench and rake and ploughand fetch and carry and bend and breakso that the cane may grow and sing asweet song for the master. Melodious:two comma five after tax.Black they were and some were fairwhen they came. Complexioned by theblood of their forbears from differentparts of their mother country butmostly from the South. But now theywere blackened even more as the sun'srays flame-seared across their bendedbacks. The heat can be as intense here asit was there. So many laws, regulations,conditions. Amendments to laws, regulations,conditions. Interpreters. Thumbprints.They just called the wholebloody thing 'GRIMIT. And so manysirdirs to see that their backs werebended, men, women and children. Yes,children of the children of our motherIllustration: Gamakhulu Dinisoland. And a hard time they had of it.But their spirit of the Upanishads andthe Bhagvad Gitas and the Pooranas andthe Shivas, and the Argunas and theSaraswatis prevailed. The invocationsand the incantations.The holy pilgrimages to holy shrines.And they remembered, too, the defeatof Ravana and they told their childrenthe story of Rama and Sita. The ritualsand the ragas of their ancient land theybrought with them and they sang anddanced in honour of their deities.They taught their children never toforget the golden languages of their owncultures but with equal fervour theyfinancially assisted the masters of theirnew country to teach their children thethree r's in the English language, thatthey might earn a living. So many'Government-Aided Indian Schools'.And only the other day, someone saidthat they do more to preserve and promotethe English language, the highideals and the noble values of the Englishtradition, than their Englishspeakingcompatriots themselves.Gradually, so gradually, some menwere taken off the fields and put intothe mills. The women and the childrentoiled on in the fields. Designation —'field workers'.The water place was the meetingplace. Communal taps, they calledthem. They met and they married. Thelavatories were communal too. You satSTAFFRIDER, DECEMBER 1980/JANUARY 1981 5