Friday 19 / April / 2024
Muscat: “His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said changed Oman completely, and it has not been easy, but he has done it with the strength and conciliation of God Almighty,” said Parmanand Ratansee Govardhandas, a quite remarkable Indian expatriate in Oman.
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But Parmanand is not like most Indians: He was born in Oman in 1945, and has spent all of his life in the Sultanate, having seen the nation grow and evolve under the aegis of His Majesty the Sultan. He has come to love Oman as he would his own nation, and speaks Arabic just as fluently and confidently as any Omani, complete with local accent.
The Indian expat revealed his family’s close connections to the royal family – and how his father helped Omanis during WWII.
Parmanand has many memories of growing up in Oman, but the one that is most strongly etched in his mind is when his father selflessly provided food for people in Barka during the 1940s: with the Second World War making it almost impossible for supplies to come into Oman. “The WWII broke out and this stopped food supplies to the people,” he recalled. “My father had plenty of dates, so he opened a shop and decided to distribute food to people, for free.
“There were no banks at that time, only The British Bank of the Middle East, and due to lack of jobs, Omanis travelled to Bahrain and Kuwait, and from there, they sent money to my father and he distributed it to their families here,” said Parmanand.
“Sometimes, they’d ask about where he’d gotten this money, and he would always truthfully tell them who’d sent it. The owners of the farms were primarily date merchants, and their houses were made of palm trees and they were afraid to put their money in them because they were afraid they would catch fire, so they put their trust in my father.
“My father has spent about 60 years here, and my grandfather spent another 70. I spent about 60 to 70 years as well so it’s been nearly 200 years and three generations of my family that has lived here
“My grandfather came to Oman on a dhow, and it took him two months to reach Oman. There was a cholera epidemic at the time, so he was placed in quarantine with the other passengers for 10 days, after which they all set out to seek their fortune. My grandfather went to Barka and set up a food shop there.” Because of the integrity and honesty he displayed, Parmanand’s father was held in high regard by HH Shihab bin Tariq Al Said, who is currently advisor to His Majesty.
“We have never seen anyone like His Majesty the Sultan,” he revealed.
Compassionate person
“He is a very compassionate person, and I cannot praise him enough. We ask God to prolong his life and give him good health and wellbeing.” Parmanand was born more than 70 years ago in the Wilayat of Barka, with his house located a stone’s throw from Barka Fort.
“It was a very nice house,” he recalled. “But there was no electricity, and we used to bring drinking water using donkeys, who carried water from a well that was five kilometres away.
“At that time, people ate dates and drank coffee during the day and, at night, ate rice with fish. We also used to make soup by grinding small amounts of spices.
“There were very little money available. Seventy-five per cent of the food was imported from India,” said Parmanand. “We could only buy potatoes from the Netherlands, and onions from India. The boats that arrived from India would take up to five days to arrive. Sometimes, the Dutch ships wouldn’t reach us, so we could only buy onions, which were sold at a very high price.
“His Highness Sayyid Shihab loved my father a lot,” he recalled. “He used to keep a black horse for Sultan Said bin Taimur, His Majesty’s father, but he ordered us to keep it in Barka. My brother and I used to feed the horse every day and get OMR5 every month for it. The horse stayed with us for a whole year. I remember him one day filming the horse, because he owned a camera, and then sent it to Sultan Said bin Taimur in Salalah, who was very pleased to see his horse.”
“The Sultan asked Sayyid Sihab about our needs and was told that my father needed a Land Rover licence to use to bring the items from Muttrah to Barka,” revealed Parmanand.
“We did not have the money to buy the car and the price of the car was 18,000 rupees (about OMR106, which was a princely sum back then). We went to Mohsen Haider Darwish, the agents of Land Rover, and we told him we wanted to buy the car.
“At that time, we were seven brothers and our total salary was 300 rupees, but we were only told to pay 100 rupees every month, until were able to pay the full amount of the car,” he said.
“In those days, there were only four cars in Barka: two Land Rovers and two Bedfords.”
Despite spending all of his life in Oman, though, Parmanand, surprisingly, never received Omani citizenship.
“Not one of my family has received Omani nationality,” he admitted. “His Highness Sayyid Majid Al Said, asked us for all our documents in order to finalise the procedures for obtaining our Omani passports, but he died the day before we completed our formalities.”
Nevertheless, he is hopeful of the path in front of him. While his family home was demolished to make way for the new Batinah Expressway, another vital artery in Oman’s road network, he plans on building another house for himself, and the generations who follow.
“I tell my children that I wish to have a small house and a supermarket in Barka and a supermarket,” he said. “I love Barka very much because I was born there.”
