ROOTS
the madrigal, volume ii
Bhajans of my Paradabi
by gabrielle mohamed
This the death of Daksha Mohamed, and the birth of the colonial,
Unindian, Daksha Gladstone, property of the grand Massa Gladstone,
From plantation Albion, their little England in colonial Guiana.
According to the Massa’s wife, Missis An-eye-yah:
“The diseased dirt of your lands is dead, now you’re mine.
This land is now your home, and I, your owner.
Kiss the laws of the colonial Guiana and all will be right.”
Now, while Massa Gladstone loves to thrust the whips of his
Desire into my bleeding core, his mad ass wife continues to teach me to
Be by un-being myself, as “the brown bitch is now dead”.
Instead, she made an army of unwhite shadows, blazing in the heat of colonial sin.
Taking grip of my soul, she ripped the red silk of my mother’s saree, now mine
Unveiling the fabric of my Pradesh, the comfort of my soul gone...
Cutting the umbilical cord of my homeland, this white demon
Exposed the curves of my expansion of the Gandhi rivers, and the swells
Of my choli, she broke the image of my Indianess and replace me with
An unwhite shell of Daksha Gladstone, the colonized unindian gurl.
Children of colonial Guiana to survive in the land of
The undead one must always bend to the shadows will,
To the Massa’s hand of patriarchy.
One must always echo their movement, and vernacular of the Massa,
No more of the Monkey talk as Madame Gladstone called our native tongue,
Or else is the carcass of your shell will marinate the fruit of our land.
But most of all,
Children of the Red Muddah soil,
Never, ever forget, that although
They force you to look like the white savage's talk,
Walk and think like them, you are not one of them.
“You’re the lesser, the brown cattle
Plowing the land of the army of the undead,
Never, ever forget your place sweet, Sweet Baby Daksha.”
Reiterates Mississ An-eye-yah,
“Welcome to British Guiana.”
Gabrielle Mohamed is a 28 -year-old Guyanese and Catholic. In June 2017, she graduated from the University of Guyana with a Bachelor of Arts in English – Linguistics. Gabrielle is passionate about Literature and Linguistics and as an emerging Creole poet, is attempting to capture the continual influence of colonial and post-colonial attitudes and behaviours within her country men’s lives.