Sam Lingayah’s Reminiscences of an Immigrant is a very interesting work based on the life and struggles of the author who was practically illiterate. But by dint of hard work he educated himself to the highest level in UK thanks to the unique opportunity offered by a far-sighted British academician. As he depicted his life he painted the social and political scenes of his time putting the development of his country, Mauritius, in context. It is a book worth reading. In doing so I am gathering together the philosophical thoughts and ideas which he has recorded herein. Immigrants including everyone else from everywhere will find his life philosophy a mine of inspiration.

Determination, despite all the many ups and downs, finally puts Sam in the frame of the educated class. This quality itself, Sam notes in his Preface, is the basis of his success which he learned from a very early age from his poor but hard-working parents: “I am greatly indebted to my parents for inculcation in me the determination and fortitude never to leave a commitment unfulfilled.”(Italics are mine)

This same dogged determination is seen again in the early Indian immigrants to Mauritius once they had completed their indenture-ship. They were motivated ““towards self-reliance and social advancement.” Sam noted in this context: “The ex-indentured labourers were patient people, characterised by postponed satisfaction and great farsightedness in terms of shaping their future after their dreams: self-sufficiency and social mobility.”(p.8.) Gifted with such characteristics the sugar magnates “could only subdue the Indians physically but they could not suppress the power of their spirit seeking to break the chains and shackles of their appalling social conditions” (p.9).It seems Sam had absorbed these proud and noble qualities which stood him in good stead throughout his life wherever he happened to be; in Mauritius, or the Army, in India or in England, in whatever dire circumstances he found himself.

 He had witnessed his great grand father rise to a good life with wealth and reputation following hard work only to die a broken man in his old age; “everything fell apart, disappeared being swept away mercilessly and violently by the tsunami of misfortunes….That tragic scene still haunts me”(p12).He turns this into a learning, valuable experience to his advantage; that is learning from failures.