**Sadhu warned Gunn, "just as you break that temple with that bulldozer, so you, too, will be broken." Others say he just pleaded quietly with him. Whatever the truth, within one month Gunn was dead. As he was bulldozing a tree some distance away, it fell on him and broke his back. Gemini News Service correspondent Niala Maharaj recounts a story of tenacity, from Waterloo, Trinidad and Tobago.

quarter mile off thecoast of central Trinidad stands an extraor- dinary monument to the human spirit. For over 50 years, a Hindu temple, built into the Caribbean Sea. has withstood tides, breezes and neglect. It was the creation of one man — alone, unaided and ridiculed, his largest tool an ordi nary bicycle.

■Engineers does want to know how he did it," says Roshan Koodrath. a resident of the nearby village of Waterloo. "He got oil drums from Lever Brothers, filled them up with concrete and tied them together With steel. Tliat was how he made the foundation.”

But the real foundation was tenacity. A tenacity which led Sieudass Sadhu, a poor, indentured labourer from India, to defy not only the elements but the authorities in colonial Trinidad in order to create a place of wwship

"That man went to jail for that temple," points out Sheik, a fellow villager. Sadhu was the least jail-going type in the village, a hardworking sii|pr-w<>rl«T bom in 1901 in the holy city of Benares on the river Ganges.

"He was not a talker," Sheik re calls. "If you and he stay together for hours you would liardly hear him talk You had to do all the talking. He nei ther smoked nor drank

The one thing that made Sadhu noticeable was that he saved his meagre wages and went back to India every few years to worship at die holy shrines diere.

"I once asked him why he went back so often." says Sheik. "He said he had made a promise to Bhagwan (God) to return."

But as the years passed, the cost of the trip rose. It became more difficult for a labourer working for $20 fwr month to keep up this regular pilgrimage. So be decided to create a holy place in Trinidad instead.

"I believe the sea here was like the Ganges to him." Koodrath says, for he chose a piece of unused sw amp land close to the shore and began «m«ruction month after month.

'Seven days a week he used to

pass my house on his bicycle," Sheik relates. "I used to call out to him 'Salaam. Salaam, and he used to replay, Ram. Rani. He wasn't the kind of man to stop and blag, you know."

The result was a place of renowned beauty.

"You know that flower, gaattdar kapoaft" Sheik asks. "He planted so much of it that you could smell the temple from a distance. He planted 11 kinds of flowers, and vegetables too. And that garden used to be full of the most beautiful butterflies. All kinds of butterflies that you didn't see anywiiere else. You didn t have to be one of the Hindu faith to feel the beauty of the place."

Especially for Kulik (the festival of the sea), we used to have crowds of people here,' Koodrath remembers. They used to have three-day festivals. People used to come and stay and cook and sing."

Sadhu had finally created a place of pilgrimage for Hindus in Trinidad, which had few public temples at the time.

But then the management of the sugar company, which owned all the Lind in that area noticed that a build ing had been constructed on their property. (hough the swampy ground had no commercial value, they demanded that Sadhu demolish the temple. Dial was asking him to com-niitasin.

No matter what threats they used. Sheik relates, "all he would say was. I cannot break down that' They took the matter to the Assizes," he says, pointing in the direction of Port of Spain, where the law courts were.

Sadhu was fined $500, the equiva-lent of two years'wages, which he had to pay in instalments over a long period. and sentenced to 14 days in prison lor trespassing

"He make an honourable jail," Sheik bursts into sudden tears. Sadhu was such a soft man. and he make an honourable jail rather than break the temple.

And the sugar company received a court order to demolish the temple. But since they could not persuade any local person to undertake this

task. a British overseer named Gunn, "a large, red-faced man," according to Sheik, drove the bulldozer that finally erased Sadhu's creation from the face of the earth.

Sadhu warned Gunn, just as you break that temple with that bulldozer. so you, too, will be broken.” Others say he just pleaded quietly wi tli him. Whatever the truth, within one month Gunn w as dead. As he w as bulldozing a tree some distance away, it fell on him and broke his back.

In addition, states Ramnarine Binda, a former local government councillor for the area and sugar com-pany official, the Englishman who had given the order for the demolition also died suddenly of disease soon after.

As soon as Sadhu was released from prison, say village reports, he was back at the site of his former temple, looking dejected. But not broken.

He immediately set about purchasing a truck. Then he began to collect broken bricks from a nearby brick factory and dump them on the shore, day after day, load after load, in a straight line out to sea.

Flattening them down by hand, he inched his way into the ocean with the truck. After some weeks of labour, he had created an extended walkway, which intrigued the villagers.

"I used to have two fishing trawlers,' Shiek says. "And I used to be at the same spot in the evening waiting for them to come in. 1 used to watch Sadhu working for three four fames out tliere in die sea.”

One day the tide came up while the he was working. The truck was stuck and couldn't be removed till the next morning. By then, it was so badly damaged it couldn t be re paired.

"You would have thought that would stop Sadhu.' Sheik raises his eyebrows. But no. He just continued working. He would put two buckets on the handlebars of his bicycle. In one, he would have cement; in the other, sand. And he would wheel

those buckets out along the walkway he had made, day after day. That is how he built thatzruuidir. I talking about one man. not six men. He did that for more than a year.

For Sadhu was building not just a temple, but an entire prayer complex, with three maadis. a kitchen, dining room, restroom and another room. A verandah ran round the whole con-struction.

"We used to say the sea will wash away everything," Binda states. "Sometimes 1 used to pass and see him, up to his waist in water, building. We all laughed at him, I included."

But once the project was completed it became the focus of admiration for visitors from far and wide. Hundreds of people came for days and weeks at a time, especially at Hindu festivals. The sea rang with music and prayer.

"I used to go down the islands with my trawlers," says Sheik. " And quite from the Bocas I could see Sadhu's Kootiah. white and beautiful in the distance. You could use it as a guide to go home."

Sadhu, too, finally went home, on his last pilgrimage in liidia before he died of a heart attack. But before that the villagers say. he spent many happy hours in his temple.

Now, the fruit of his faith has been left in the hands of the sea, a fact that grieves Waterloo villagers of all religions and races, who want the place to be restored as a place of worship, shrine and momento to the spirit of their now-beloved Sadhu. Funds were collected for this purpose by a well known politician during one election year, but nothing was ever done.

"I am a Muslim," Sheik thunders at any opportunity, and this to a Hindu business. But it hurting me to see the destruction. A man make an honourable jail for that temple. You mean to say we can't keep it up?

N1ALA MAHARAJ it a Irinidadian freelance journal-1st and writer currently living in Amsterdam.