Utra Gurdayal spent more than 30 years in Fiji classrooms teaching with a fierce belief that language keeps culture alive.
Now retired, she still teaches but in a different way. Through stories, poems and community work she coaxes Hindi back into the homes and hearts of a new generation.
“I always felt Hindi was mine to cherish,” she said remembering a childhood gathered around her father as he read the Ramayana.
As a teacher, Gurdayal answered the practical needs she saw in class. When textbooks were scarce, she wrote short poems and tiny stories on cards for children to practise reading: three-line poems for beginners, slightly longer pieces for older pupils.
“If they can’t read a big poem, give them two lines they can learn and love.”
Gurdayal has written and published five books, the first one being Mahak, a creative non-fiction used in year 9 to teach Hindi to high schoolers. The text frames Girmit history as a conversation between a grandmother and grandchild.
Beyond books, Gurdayal’s craft is deliberate. She is a careful researcher who spends time at the National Archives and the Fiji Museum when history is involved.
“Without research I cannot write.”
That discipline gives her historical pieces an accuracy that teachers and readers have praised.
Her life in retirement remains orderly and creative. Mornings begin with prayer and tending the garden — she laughs that she talks to her flowers and sometimes kisses them — then she writes in the late afternoon, often from 3pm until dusk.
Music plays while she works; she composes two-line poems on some days and chapters on others.
She designs bookmarks to encourage reading, asks young people what they are reading, and quietly mentors local Hindi teachers.
But Gurdayal is frank about the barriers for Pacific writers. Publishing is expensive, grants are rare, and many authors end up self-publishing in India or paying printing costs themselves.
Language loss worries her. She believes the decline in Hindi enrolment comes not only from school choices, but from what happens at home.
“If parents don’t speak Hindi to their children, the words never take root.”
Utra Gurdayal
