The Cutlass: Retaining our Indo-Caribbean Culture.”
Here are excerpts; see full post at
Hosted and produced by Vinay Harrichan, an Indo-Trinidadian—and fellow Indo-Caribbean and chutney music lover—who grew up in the United States, The Cutlass is “a progressive podcast and platform dedicated to the Indo-Caribbean community and descendants of indentureship”
Clad in white and veiled in red with her arms crossed in defiance, the brown-skinned woman stands in front of a sugarcane field clutching a cutlass. There is a tattoo—three dots—etched onto her chin and a traditional gold bangle—a notable sign to identify any Indo-Caribbean—clasped around her wrist. With no smile upon her lips, her eyes say it all: strength and resilience amid poverty, abuse, and violence during indentureship. But who could she possibly be? She is our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, our ancestors who were brought from India to Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Mauritius, Fiji, Jamaica, and South Africa (amongst other places) as indentured laborers to toil plantations. Stripped of caste and kin upon separation from their homeland, the journey across the kala pani would be unlike any other.