Ashook Ramsaran
An Immigrant Success Story
Guyana Journal, December 2007
Ashook Ramsaran, Guyanese-born, is the President and CEO of Ramex, Inc., an electronics manufacturing enterprise in College Point, New York. Ramex designs and manufactures intercommunication systems for the healthcare, transportation and penitentiary marketplace, and has been named among the Top 100 Indian Owned Businesses in the USA for 10 consecutive years.
Mr. Ramsaran is also the Secretary General of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) and Chairperson of GOPIO’s Tracing Our Roots Committee. He is also the Co-Founder and Director of the Guyanese East Indian Civic Association (GEICA), and Director of the Caribbean Business Council (CBC). He is an ardent advocate of universal human rights and observance of the rule of law in the Indian Diaspora, and collaborates with St. John’s University’s Committee on Caribbean and Latin American Studies (CLACS) on a continuing series of seminars and conferences. He was given special recognition by St. John’s University, November 15, 2007, and a scholarship was set up in the name of Ashook Ramsaran for Caribbean and Latin America studies.
Mr. Ramsaran also collaborates with New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) on annual events on immigrant experiences in New York City. He has been honored as an “Outstanding Immigrant” by New York City Council and serves as an “Annual Principal For The Day” in the New York Public School System. He is very active in his local New York community civic, political and cultural groups, contributes generously to causes on behalf of the needy, and has written extensively on issues of interest and concern affecting people of Indian Origin in the global Indian Diaspora. He initiated and chaired the first “Tracing Our Roots” session at Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2005 (PBD2005), PBD being an annual event of the global Indian Diaspora. He was again a speaker at the January PBD 2007 in New Delhi and September PBD 2007 in New York, and is scheduled as speaker on “Engaging The Diaspora” at PBD2008 in New Delhi. He is the global coordinator of the planned May 2008 conference “Regional Community Dialogue” in Guyana.
Ashook lives with his family in Fresh Meadows, New York.
Recently we have communicated at length about his sojourn – from the village of Letter Kenny to New York City. – Gary Girdhari, Editor, Guyana Journal
GJ: Please tell us something about your early growing-up years and your move to the US.
AR: Well, let me start from the beginning. I was born in the late 1940s in the village of Letter Kenny on the Corentyne Coast of Guyana (formerly British Guiana), third generation of Indian ancestors who went there as contracted indentured laborers from the Indian State of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh. The exact location is being researched and traced.
At that time, Letter Kenny was a farming village. It had one Mandir, one Christian church and one Mosque; in addition there were two rice mills and two dry goods grocery stores. It had a petrol station and two rum shops [local bars]. It was also the location of the central village office for the two neighboring villages. The main road was paved but all the other streets were dirt type and became flooded and very muddy when it rained. (And rained it did, often, being in the tropics, sitting near to the Equator and with hot, humid conditions.)
I am the third child in a family of ten children (six boys, four girls). My father’s name was Ramsaran Ramlochan, a sugar plantation supervisor, a position he obtained upon the passing of my grandfather. At the time of birth registration, most of those who went to the local post office to register the birth would simply state no name for “Father’s Name” [“Not Stated”]. In addition, our names were spelled according to how they were pronounced by the English clerks; hence the difference in the spelling of my name as Ashook instead of Ashok, and my father’s name listed simply as Ramsaran instead of Ramsaran Ramlochan.
As with most people I knew, each had a “right name” which was registered at the post office at birth, and a “call name” which everyone knew and used. For example, my older brother was called Patrick but was registered as Nancoomar. My name was registered as Ashook but I was called Lloyd. My father was called Sunny but his real name was Ramlochan, while my mother was called Irene but registered as Dhinki. My oldest sister died at childbirth so no name was given. The other siblings were Rajkumar (Brother, later Sam), Dilip (Buddy, later Swift), Jankie (Ruby), Vejailaxshmi (Pearl), Bishnu (Terry), Surojnie (Verone) and Christendat.
My older brother Patrick is five years older that I am, while Brother who followed me was only eleven months younger. Then came the twins (Ruby and Buddy), followed by Pearl, Terry, Verone and Christendat who passed away from natural causes at the age of 2 years, a tragic loss indeed for all of us. Later in 1969 Verone as well passed away.
My father was one of the youngest of sixteen children in his family and it was always a delight to experience when they all got together with their extended families. Of course, most lived in lots next to one another in an area my grandfather bought from the government with the $30 return ship passage money he opted to take rather than return to India upon the conclusion of his indentureship contract. My grandfather died in 1941, a few years before I was born, but my grandmother lived for many years afterward till 1966, and I got to know her well.
My mother was born Dhinki Persaud and she was from further east almost to the eastern end of the country where it was separated from Suriname by the Corentyne River. She was born in Springlands, approximately the middle of eight children, 3 boys and 5 girls. Life for them was the same in terms of hard work and survival. Since my maternal grandparents lived more than 30 miles away, we hardly visited them. Usually they visited us. As with my paternal grandfather, my maternal grandfather died before I was born, but my maternal grandmother lived well into 1966. I got to know her well too.
For the most part, every household in the village was a farming household, cultivating rice and coconuts, as well as planting home garden for vegetables and fruits. Life in my village was no different from the other villages, with survival being the primary concern. My father worked in the sugar cane plantation a few miles away and at the same time planted a couple acres of rice lands to supplement his meager income. It was obvious that the two persons with cars in the village were the rich store owner and the rice mill owner. Everyone else struggled every day for the means to make ends meet, although there was enough food but no amenities.
My mother spoke only a few words of Hindi and my father understood less. We the children grew up with English only as the school system was all church affiliated and catered only to English. Later in life I would regret that I did not learn any Hindi taught by the local pundits in the Mandirs, just for the sake of understanding even a few words of the melodious Hindi songs which we knew from the Indian movies when we were privileged to see them.
We lived one street inside from the main road. The houses were on both sides of the dirt street that was quite a challenge when it rained. Our house was small – thatched roof with mud walls and approximately four feet off the ground to prevent flooding and damage in the house when it rained; and it rained quite a lot in the rainy season when planting took place. I suppose our house was okay by comparison to others on the main roadside, which had zinc roofs, board walls and two floors. Not knowing any better, I suppose, there was no envy or jealousy, only that life had to be sustained at the spot where we were assigned.
Living in Letter Kenny Village was ‘normal’ for us and there were many kids within the same age group. We played games using stick bats in sand lot cricket, played marbles, enjoyed the “salt pass” games, and thrived on raiding mangoes, genips, guavas, byres and other fruits from the farms and gardens of the neighborhood. Of course, when we were caught, we had the expected beatings from our parents, but life went on again the next day.
I was just six years old when my father used to send my older brother Patrick and me to the rice fields instead of school. I had started going to school for a few weeks and then my father decided to send us to the rice fields instead. Patrick did not wish to go to school any further and, the way things were, the average farmer parent did not consider it important that the child should have an education. On the other hand, I really wanted to go to school and did everything possible to avoid going to the rice fields.
I used to hide my book bag in the bushes early in the morning. Then while Patrick and I would be going to the fields, I would pretend that I left the lunch at home and go back for it. Of course, I hurried home, retrieved the books and went to school, but afraid to come home for lunch in case I was punished, kept home or sent back to the fields. This went on for weeks and I continued to miss lunch, but enjoyed school. Patrick complained about not getting his lunch. My father would rebuke me harshly for running away from the fields and I do believe that I was beaten once or twice. Then something extraordinary happened: My uncle Kissoon intervened. He was my father’s older brother, the tailor living across the street from us. He told my father that he had watched and seen me sneak home, retrieve the book bag and hurry to school. He strongly suggested that my father allow me to go to school, and that changed the entire course of my life. I would not like to think what it would have been otherwise. “Thank you, dear Uncle Kissoon,” I would repeat so many times in my life.
When I was eight years old, my father bought a piece of land by the main roadside in Bloomfield which is the village just adjacent to Letter Kenny. Much later, I found out that my mother and my uncles’ wives could not get along and the fights and animosity forced my father to make the move. My mother’s three brothers were carpenters and they came and built us a big house with three bedrooms on two floors, glass windows, long stairs in the sides, etc. I distinctly remember, with encouragement of my carpenter uncle, using a piece of twig and marking the date August 12, 1956 on the soft concrete, and that marking remained even until my last visit there in 1981.
I relished going to school and enjoyed that time. The elementary school was Auchlyne Church of Scotland (C of S) School and was just 15 minutes walking distance from home. The journey to and from school was always in the company of other kids, including older ones, and that was a memorable part of childhood. When we moved in 1956 to the roadside house, it was more convenient and less mud on the feet when it rained. In the fourth year, I was placed in a special scholarship class with other selected children, and skipped two classes during the time at Auchlyne. I took the scholarship exam in 1959 but did not pass and was content to take the other exam to become a pupil teacher since I could not afford the fees for secondary school.
While waiting to take the pupil teachers examination, a representative from the Port Mourant Booker sugar plantation visited the school and informed those in my class that we were eligible to take the Booker scholarship exam if our parents worked at the sugar plantation. It was the first time Booker scholarships were being offered, one per plantation, and I signed up without hesitation. I went by bus very early one Saturday morning, together with another student from our village, to New Amsterdam High School, about 17 miles away.
Two weeks later my father came home early from his work at the plantation and informed me that I had passed and was awarded the scholarship to attend high school. I was so happy; everyone was happy, especially my father who seemed vindicated that he accepted Uncle Kissoon’s urging to allow me to attend school.
Throughout the time my father and I did not have much conversation as was the norm in our society. As such there was little or no exchanges of father-son dialogue. The one thing I will remember was the gleam in my father’s eyes when he told how he was informed of my scholarship award. He was working on the sugar cane field and the plantation manager drove all the way to inform him of my passing. The plantation manager told my father the good news from across the canal and asked my father to go across so he could congratulate him. My father said that he felt so happy and proud that he could not remember crossing the canal, almost as if he was walking on the water. That was the only time my father mentioned that he felt proud of my accomplishment. Even with more successes and achievement in later years, I would have expected parental encouragement, but that was missing.
The scholarship award allowed me to choose any high school in the country and the obvious choice was the prestigious Queens College in the capital of Georgetown which is almost half a day’s travel via car and across the ferry. My father had a sister who lived on the outskirts of Georgetown, but it was decided by my parents, with some coaching by family elders, that I was too young to be attending school in Georgetown. So the choice was Corentyne High School which was a bicycle ride from home. I started attending Corentyne High School in 1959.
I was the only one in our household to become a Christian. It so happened that I admired my cousin Leonard who had completed primary school, quite an accomplishment. He was the son of my father’s brother and lived next door. He was attending the Presbyterian Church in Letter Kenny and I started following him and liked it, perhaps it made me different from the other kids. It was years later that I realized that Leonard attended church because of Sheila whom he subsequently married. I remained with the church and later switched to Lutheran Church two villages away after the Presbyterian Church in Letter Kenny did not give me a bible that I desperately wanted to keep at home.
I rode my bicycle everyday to school together with many other children as my age group emerged as the ones to pursue secondary education en masse. It was hard studies in many subjects that included English, English Literature, Geography, French, Latin, Algebra, Geometry, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, with the sciences just introduced as full subjects. At the end of four years, in 1963, I wrote the Senior Cambridge exams sponsored by the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. I did very well and passed with very good grades. In June 1964 I wrote the University of London exams and again passed. That was the end of high school, a good five years where I felt inspired and motivated due primarily to Principal J.C. Chandisingh who made sure we all had a sound education in English language.
Upon completion of my high school years, I was too young to work in the civil service system so I took a position as a pupil teacher in a newly opened farming development about 25 miles from home. I traveled by car along with seven other teachers from the area. In the meantime, I applied for the civil service and, after working as a school teacher for nine months, I joined the civil service in Georgetown. I stayed at my aunt’s house where I would have stayed had I chosen to attend Queens College upon being awarded the Booker scholarship. Due to sudden opening in my area, I was transferred within one month to the Magistrate’s Court in New Amsterdam, the largest town in our county [Berbice] and 17 miles from home. I traveled daily by car with a group of other civil service employees. It was a good job with relatively good pay and a respectable position in the community. Within a period of one year I was transferred to Whim Magistrate’s Court which is a bicycle ride from home.
I got married in 1967 while at that job and started thinking of overseas. Camille’s (born Camille Ramgadoo) father decided that he wanted to build a house for us so that we could move out of my parent’s home. Camille was pregnant in late 1967 and I was looking at options how not to get bogged down in Guyana. I applied for studies in the USA and was accepted at a technical school in New York City. Camille was in the ninth month of pregnancy when I left for the USA. It was a difficult decision but one I had to make. Camille was very supportive all the way, perhaps knowing that it would bring about a better tomorrow for us. Our first child Arnold Mahendra was born March 4, two weeks after I left Guyana with $600, all our life’s savings. Camille stayed with her parents while I was away.
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