ONE PERSON'S DREAM

Quarter of a mile off the west coast of Trinidad, at Waterloo in Carapichaima, stands the Siewdass Sadhu Shiva Mandir. It stands as a testament of one man's determination and love of Hinduism. 

Siewdass Sadhu was born in 1904, son of two indentured laborers at the Waterloo Sugar Estate in Trinidad. Sadhu had travelled at age 4 to Trinidad on the SS Mutlah. In the 1930s he had a dream to built a temple as a place of worship, and constructed a small one on an sugar estate near the Gulf of Paria. His refusal remove the temple at the behest of the landowner led to 14 days imprisonment.

His dream never died. In 1947, Sadhu began building a new temple, in the sea, riding a bicycle to transport stones, cement, and sand in his leather bag, unloading them into the Gulf of Sea, creating artificial land.

For 25 years, Sadhu dedicated himself to the temple's completion. On his bicycle and in a leather bag, alone, he carried stone by stone, assembling an octagonal shaped building, his beloved temple.  He died in 1970.

In 1994, the government at the time helped to finish the temple he started. It is a heritage site that has become a tourist destination and is a sanctuary for devotees and visitors. Today it is called the Siewdass Sadhu Shiva Mandir: Temple in the Sea in honour of this great man.

My own visit to this sacred place took me back in time to a different place. ..

The desire to discover sometimes leads to a deeper understanding of one's existence. What started as a Divali photoshoot invoked something profound ... a revelation of God's divine nature within the human spirit.

Here, the presence of Siewdass Sadhu pervades. I see him through the glare of the sun setting, after a day of work in the cane fields, approaching on his bicycle, carrying a leather bag with building stones. He was an ordinary man, an indentured laborer from India, whose love of Hinduism led to the single-handed creation of an extraordinary national treasure that has endured. 

Siewdass Sadhu is the combined spirit of India and Trinidad ... industrious, spiritual, persevering, creative and optimistic. And his legacy lives.

I crossed the threshold from swampland to sea, standing in the shadow of the simple structure of unpretentious and understated beauty, nested in the centre of a man-made island at Waterloo, in the Gulf of Paria. And I was transported to the banks of the holy Ganges. This sacred place surrounded by mystical waters embraced me into its bosom, and I knew I was in God's presence.