The Indian Weekender, 17 June 2022

12
NEW ZEALAND
Friday, June 17, 2022
Read online www.iwk.co.nz
A Fiji Indian’s voyage of self-discovery
VENU MENON IN
WELLINGTON
The Leonidas sat anchored
off the Fiji coastline for
several weeks before
it was allowed to offload its
cholera-infested human cargo
on shore.
It was the first of 42 ships
that transported around
61,000 Indian indentured
labourers to Fiji over 87
voyages between 1879 and
1916 (when the practice was
officially abolished).
From 1834, when the
first boatload of indentured
labourers disembarked in
Mauritius, around one million
indentured labourers had been
transported to plantations
strewn across eight colonial
destinations around the world,
culminating in Fiji.
‘Across the Kalapani: Uttar
Pradesh to Fiji’ chronicles the
first arrivals to Fiji under the
infamous indentured labour
system devised by Great
Britain to bolster the plantation
economy of its far-flung colony
in the Pacific.
Girmit Day, named after
the indenture agreement
signed by the first batch of
Indian indentured labourers
who arrived in Fiji aboard the
Leonidas on 14 May 1879,
is observed by the Fiji Indian
community worldwide.
The indenture contract was
Sunita and husband Dev Narayan
for a period of five years.
Over 450 “girmitiyas” signed
up to work on the sugarcane
plantations owned by white
settlers who took over the
island nation after it became a
Crown colony under the Deed of
Cession signed on 10 October
1974 by 13 Fijian chiefs.
Sir Hercules Robinson signed
the document on behalf of the
British Crown.
But for author Sunita Narayan
the book marks a personal
odyssey of self-discovery as she
follows the journey of five men
recruited from her ancestral
village in Uttar Pradesh to toil
on rubber plantations in Fiji.
The book, the first of a
planned trilogy, is part
history and part fiction.
But above all, it is an act
of catharsis for a woman, torn
between dual cultures, who is in
search of her identity.
The paradox at the core of the
book is that the journey of the
indentured labourers, plucked
from their roots in India, is
ultimately one that denies them
the scope of returning to their
point of origin.
Their identities remain
permanently stranded between
two cultures, India and Fiji.
Narayan attempts to plumb
the depths of this paradox
as she plots the journey of
Mangal, loosely modelled on
her father’s older
brother, who leaves his village
in the hinterland of UP to board
a vessel headed for Fiji.
“I’m a Fiji Indian and a
mainland Indian. I’m also a New
Zealand national,” Narayan
points out. “Fiji Indians carry
this split identity within them
wherever they go”.
Narayan started work on her
book in 2004. The book was
published in May this year.
“I did most of the writing up
in the air”, she recalls. “I have
flown to Fiji at least 22 times,
and taken long-haul flights to
Canada and the US.”
Narayan likes to describe the
book as an amalgam of history
and imagination.
“A lot of Fiji Indians from my
generation are very interested
in visiting India to learn where
they came from,” Narayan
notes. “But I can see that the
next generation, who are the
main target of my book (apart
from my own self-discovery) ,
are also getting interested in
exploring their identity.”
So, what has Narayan
discovered about herself in
the making of this book?
“The main discovery for me
happened on my first visit
to India in 2005,” Narayan
reminisces. “My plane was
about to land in Mumbai
airport. I was so overwhelmed
by emotion and my eyes welled
up in tears. I was about to
set foot on the land of my
forefathers. At that moment, it
became apparent to me who I
was. I realised that I was very
much an Indian at heart.”
The first thing Narayan did
when she stepped on the
tarmac at Mumbai airport was
to touch the ground and say
“I’m here.”
Property market facing unique set of
pressures, real estate boss says
RADIO NZ
The pressures on the
property market are
unlike anything seen
before in 40 years in the
industry, a real estate boss
says.
House prices are continuing
to fall and properties are taking
longer to sell, new figures show.
The latest Real Estate
Institute price index, which
measures the changing value
of properties, increased 3.7
percent for the year ended May,
compared with a 6.3 percent
rise in April.
The seasonally adjusted
national median house price
was up 3.1 percent from May
2021 to $840,000.
But the month-on-month
price decreased 3.1 percent
from April this year, when it hit
$875,000.
The median price excluding
Auckland, was up 7.8 percent
to $730,000 year-on-year
while in Auckland it fell 1.9
percent from a year ago to
$1,125,000.
Residential sales volumes fell
28.4 percent and in Tāmaki
Makarau dropped by 38 percent
from May last year.
Barfoot and Thompson
managing director Peter
ThompsonBarfoot and
Thompson managing director
Peter Thompson. Photo:
Barfoot and Thompson / Getty
Images
The managing director of
Auckland's largest real estate
agency, Barfoot and Thompson,
Peter Thompson said the
volume of sales has dried up
driven by uncertainty within
the real estate market as well
as the global economy.
There was a seven-year real
estate cycle, he said, with the
last big decline in 2008 and
prior to that 2001.
"When you start seeing those
cycles go into that mode it's
natural that people just take
their time at the start of that
and see where we go," he told
Morning Report.
He has been in the industry
for 40 years and has not seen
a similar cycle - interest rates
rising, the global economic
crisis and the Russia-Ukraine
war which was affecting the
supply chain.
Shortages of timber and
gib board were examples of
why construction costs were
increasing and that was feeding
into the supply of existing
homes.
"I think prices
won't fall as
much as what
people are
talking about"
Barfoot and Thompson
managing director
Peter Thompson
"I think prices won't fall as
much as what people are talking
about, but vendors do need to
be negotiable with their price,
they need to meet the market."
He was predicting a flattening
off and then a slight decrease
until the end of the year before
prices might start to lift next
year.
Banks were demanding more
proof of the valuation of a
property prior to lending, which
was understandable, and they
had stopped pre-approval of
loans which was affecting the
willingness to buy at auctions.
However, auctions still
worked well to bring people to
the table, Thompson said.
He would prefer that the
Reserve Bank left the OCR at
the current level so that those
with mortgages knew where
they stood financially for a few
months.
Thompson was expecting
to see a drop in the number
of salespeople in the industry
because there were fewer
properties being sold.
-Reprinted from RadioNZ