In the late 1970s, I left the Mediterranean in times that happened to be unpropitious for Cyprus, the island of my birth. Destiny came like a gravitational wave and took me to the northeast shores of South America, where I taught literature at the University of Guyana.

During the six years I lived there, I became involved in Shakti worship brought to the sugar plantations of Berbice from the Tamil region of India, in the form of the village Goddess Mariamman. The tradition was taken there in the 19th century by Indian indentured labourers also known as ‘bound coolies’. In Indo-Caribbean culture, this ritual practice is most often referred to as Kalimai Puja.

In the community of her devotees, I found my soul mates. In 1988, I made the documentary film Hail Mother Kali as a tribute to the tradition, and my desire to keep the historical and cultural memory alive. The film was made at Blairmont Kali Temple and the surrounding areas, documenting the annual three-day Kargam Puja.

Soul mates always turn up when you least expect them, and in unlikely places, as if emerging from deep memory, or as accidents of fate that take you on a journey that forever unfolds with multiple turns and directions. The embrace of the community never left me.

I am in the process of completing a new essay film called Remembering Mariamman to be released in 2025. The film uses audiovisual material gathered over the last forty-five years and the script takes the form of personal memoir. For the celebration of the 45th Anniversary of Kargam Puja at Blairmont Kali Temple in February 2025, I am sharing the first documentary on YouTube.