Interesting article manish..
I read Naipauls novels some based on life in trinidad ( bend in the river,mimic men) written in first person point of view which makes it sound autobiographical and also life as a student in england written in first person point of view (engima of arrival,half a life).
He wrote books on india like area of darkness, house of mr. biswas which seem like travelogues.He also wrote kind of history objective book like "India a wounded civilization"
and a lot of indians feel the same way about naipaul too , a mixture of reverence and dislike depending on how patriotic people are ..
But after reading some six to eight books of naipual I think he is a writer who belongs to no country or place and views every country as a outsider or a foreigner and is sensitive and critical both about the life and people of that country. That is what probably fetched him a nobel prize.
He looks at countries,people, lifestyles with detachment and narrates like a traveller who is trying to fit into that culture, which I think is unique and gives a unique perspective to every situation and place.

As an Indian desi married to a Trinidadian desi for 33 years, I have a little domain knowledge of Trinidad and Naipaul etc. I think Naipaul was a genius when he wrote Mark Twainish style novels about the simple villagers of Trinidad - a la Suffrage of Elvira, The Mystic Masseur, Miguel Street. These are not the books, however, that Naipaul is known for. Naipaul became renowned when he anointed himself the great observer of various cultures and received the same respect from the slightly guilty-feeling white world that many mediocre African American writers did in the Seventies and Eighties.

I cannot believe how a wonderfully warm writer, writing richly about the greatest subject of all - common people and common human traits - could turn into such a dull narrator of useless observations in his later years. No, I have never been offended by An Area of Darkness, Among the Believers and the rest. I have been bored silly by them! Frankly, I don't get Naipaul. Incidentally, one of my master's is in English Literature (thesis on Elizabethan Drama).

The prizes conferred on him by various august bodies, and the respect accorded to him in the cocktail circuit, all occurred in an era when there were very few Indians of note writing in English, and more importantly, writing outside of India. The Indian diaspora did not have a writer of his output. Today, with the likes of Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram Seth, Mistry etc writing in English, someone of Mr. Naipaul's sensibility would not be able to claim the spotlight with the drivel he passes off as insight.

As for Trinidad, I wish this country would feature more in Indian blogs. I marvel at the integrity and self-preservation of its Hindu and Muslim cultures brought from India ages ago. I have come to believe, thanks to Trinidad, that it is possible for a culture to survive without its native language but not without its rituals. (There is hope for us NRI's after all.) I have hundreds of Trinidadian relatives and friends. Not one speaks Hindi. Not one is any less Indian for that!

It's a Good blog but not all Indo-Trinidadians came from Calcutta that was just a point of embarkation, alot of the Indians that came to Trinidad came from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The man who built the temple in the sea was Siewdass Sadhu with the help of a temple builder Ramdeo Gosine who helped Siewdass build the temple in the sea and also built the first Dattatreya Temple in Orangefield,Trinidad in the vicinity of the new Dattatreya Temple and the Hanuman Statue.

Naipaul is a critic but with good reason because he found the culture of the peoples of Trinidad backward,( at that time in the 20th century),Since the African decendants lacked family and social structure and are still suffering from social ineptitude.The Indian decendants with it's cultures and social structure not budging from the 19th century thinking and equally socially inept in Trinidadian society and would not have been palatable to someone like Naipaul with high ideals of western origin.

In this 21st Century Hinduism has changed,the caste system in Trinidad is non existant but exists in a subtle form for those who want it, the younger generation of Indian descendants becoming educated and sophisticated still hold Hinduism in high esteem but refuse to accept outmoded irrelevant beliefs that are propagated by some Hindu Pundits that bear no relevance to their daily lives.

The younger generation of Indian-Trinidadian descendants do really care to keep Hindu culture in Trinidad intact as it is still possible to find someone who can recite the Hanuman Chalisa in hindi although we may speak english as our native tongue, and young Pundits as well as lay people as young as 16yrs are well versed in the Vedas,Bhagvad Gita, Mahabharat, Ramayan and performing Puja rituals.
So essentially we are using the Internet to rediscover Hinduism and educate ourselves.

Indians in Trinidad have progressed to being the dominant Business class and are also regarded similarly throughout the Caribbean Islands and South American Mainland.

Wonderful pictures from aamchi Mumbai. Keep posting.

Free India Travel Guide

Just maybe someone can answer this...

Is there any more information about this temple builder Ramdeo Gosine? Is his contribution recorded somewhere?

hi i need 2 c more hindu temple eg) the ones in williams vill .

Anyone have info on Ramdeo Gosine? A bio or a pic?