Keeping Culture Alive
February 22, 2009
Ramesh Kalicharran was a primary school teacher before he
migratefrdom Guyana to New York City in 1970. Now he runs
arealestate/travel agency/driving school in Jamaica, Queens.
But hehasn’t lost the compulsion to instruct.
“Somebodyfrom Trinidad or Guyana or Suriname who just
migrate to America, and they come to me to rent a room or
anapartment, I counsel them. My thing is not just to make
moneyIf. I get them an apartment I will tell them, ‘Don’t
comeback to me for an apartment. When you come back to
mecomeand buy a house.”’
We’resitting in the real estate section of his business, a long
narrowoffice with rows of maroon swivel chairs behind desks
covered in wood-grain contact paper.
Onelong wall has huge paintings with East Indian themes.
Oneofthem depicts the Taj Mahal viewed from across a shimmeringlake.
Kalicharran, a portly man with a full head and
abeardof salt-and-pepper hair, shows off pictures of himself
andagroupof about 60 people in front of the monument. The
photoswere taken last November, during one of the package
tourshe organises to India. He calls it Bharat Yatra, which
means India Journey. Two to four times a year, he or an assistant
leads West Indians on the pilgrimage.
Kalicharran is a community leader in Richmond Hill and
Jamaica, areas with high concentrations of Indian-descended
West Indians. He founded the USA Pandits’ Parishad (Council)
and another Hindu organisation called Gyan Bhakti Satsang
(Knowledge Devotion Society).
But his “pride and joy” is the annual Phagwah parade he
helped establish over 16 years ago. The colourful procession
of people and floats starts from Sybil’s Bakery and Restaurant
on Liberty Avenue and ends with a concert at Smokey Oval
Park. It has become a highly popular event, attracting tens of
thousands of people.
Kalicharran believes it’s important for immigrants and their
descendants to maintain the religious and cultural traditions
of their foreparents. “They say in Rome you have to do as the
Romans do, but 1 disagree with that,” he says. “If you forget
your language, you forget your culture, you get lost in corporate
America. New immigrants, they should be themselves and try
not to be anybody else.”
Article was taken from Caribbean Beat Magazine
