Sarnami House

From 1873 - ten years after the abolishment of slavery - until 1916 some 34,000 Indian contract labourers came to Surinam to take over the work on the plantations. This is how my ancestors ended up in Surinam. My great grandfather boarded the Indus III in October 1908 and arrived in his new motherland on 5 December of that same year.

The Sarnami House has a permanent exhibition which tells the story of these immigrants, backed up by painstaking research and excellent photo material. Anyway, for the next couple of months the Sarnami House will host a great programme related to this Indian diaspora, or more precise, they have invited various well-known writers in diaspora to give lectures on the various diaspora issues and how they have translated this in their own literary works.

The kick-off was last Friday with none other than Dutch-Iranian writer Kader Abdolah. Naema Tahir, Anil Ramdas and Amal Chatterjee will also be honouring the Sarnami House during the next couple of months. For the full programma, check out Sarnamihuis.net.

KIT celebrates its centennial in 2010 And it so happens that I was there. Okay, I'll admit, by coincidence. The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam is an independent centre of knowledge, consisting of a renown museum and theatre. Mum and I actually went there to visit the permanent exhibition 'Rondom India', which proved an excellent choice. A very skilled display and explanation of Indian history, religion, culture and the way these all come together in various forms of art. Even room for the Indian diaspora.







Do check out the story of Shri Ram in the Ramayana. You might also want to immerse yourself in the Mahabharata and find out about how Arjun and his four brothers married Draupadi.

Photo credits: from Wikipedia but probably put there by the Tropenmuseum.