Written by Lloyd Jodah
Word was Santa didn’t come to poor homes but in 1935 there was proof that he did, even though it was a bit late : on December 26th 1935 he brought a gift to the Kanhai home in the village of Port Mourant in British Guiana (now Guyana), a baby boy named Rohan Babulal Kanhai. Like every Guyanese boy (especially of Indian heritage) he crawled, learned to walk then began to play cricket ( not neccessarily in that order ).
By the time Rohan Kanhai made his Test debut for the West Indies in 1957 it had only been nine years since Gandhi led India to Independence and few knew of the existence of a small Indian population outside of India, in Guyana and Trinidad, and fewer cared.
Contrast that with now when from New York to London to Hong Kong and countless cities in between, people of Indian ethnicity play active and major roles at all professional levels, doctors, IT professionals, engineers etc. From finding water on the moon, to the corridors of any American hospital, you can’t help but be struck by the breadth and accomplishments of India and the Indian diaspora around the world.
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