The place I left, the people I loved. There are choices to make, decisions to take and roots to remember. The osmosis of cultures has had a loaded impact on my psyche, behaviour, and attitude in my relationships with people from different cultures over decades. When the long-established ties are cut one tends to dive in the ocean of the net but still the broadband fibre is missing. The people would not be met for a brace, a hi or a smile.

Tyack, in terms of Mauritian population composition by community, is Mauritius in miniature, and this is a formidable opportunity. Like Mauritius, it has been settled by labourers and a few artisans. They have come from neighbouring sugar estates, namely, Britannia, Beau-Bois, Benares, Bel-Air, Combo, RicheBois, Senneville, Union-Ducray and St-Aubin. Incidentally, these immigrants have, so to say, nestled in specific areas: Upper Tyack, Camp Kedoo, Chemin Dynamo, Railway.

Today I miss the smiles, the care-attitudes, the worries genuinely expressed of many, the appreciation of many – equally for the pride your actions provide – and most importantly, the readiness and preparedness your neighbours, relatives and friends demonstrate. They are Afzal, Aslam, Ah Fong, Amit (B) Annen, Bala (Y), Balraj, Chachi (G), Gerard (L), Gilbert, Jeewan (G), Johan, Imran, Menon, Nanda (E), Rajaye, Rajoo (A), Raffick, Soogun, Tanand, Ti Boubou of different age groups, but all passionate about good human relationships. Some of them – my mentors, my peers, and a few younger ones – if proofs were needed, made of intergenerational conversations so natural.

The dawns unfolded with the call of the muezzin and the recorded pious Hindu songs. From a little down, the church bell rang as it has been ringing for years. These were quiet energies that have been sleeping in our individual and collective being even before we became aware of them. They have carved our habits, our intentions, our emotions, our movements, and our activities other than professional. We have absorbed willingly or unwillingly, but consciously for sure, and adopted one and another’s rhythm. How many times have I seen congregations, group prayers, processions, pilgrimages, conducted by the one born here or by the erudite invited for the occasion where the attention is as concentrated, the message deep, the path indicated all for the emancipation of the human being that we are, more consciousness about the way forward and the social cohesion and communion required that make Tyack a responsive “agglomeration” for peaceful living.

Inside this village with no great pretentions but with legitimate ambitions are places of learning and teaching. The museum, birthplace of Sookdeo Bissoondoyal, a great politician and tribun is a passage obligé of students and scholars. The dedicated kindergartens have supplied intakes to secondary schools, though closed today, have remained symbols of enlightenment to generations of the fifties ever contributing to the socio-economic development of Savanne, of the country and beyond the seas. The evening classes for the teaching of ancestral languages have continued to relay the values of cultural heritage.

Readers will say all villages are the same. For sure, we have similar characteristics in terms of councillors, service providers, small economic operators, our omnipresent snacks with the tastiest boiled or fried noodles and our dholl puri sellers. Each village has its feel, its emotions individual and collective, its individual and collective memory. The difference lies in the fusion, the energy source of humans.