hat’s your favourite Hindi song and do you understand the words?

Bob Gopee grew up constantly hearing religious Hindi songs, having come from a devout Hindu family in Chatham, Cedros. He has a deep love for music as well as for the Hindi language, which led him to research the meanings of lyrics from Hindi religious songs and the most popular playback songs from East Indian films.

He published these translated lyrics along with the original in a book entitled Geet Arpanam, which means, Offering of Songs.

’Actually the book is more of a religious submission and it mainly consists of spiritual songs along with sentimental and romantic songs. There are 70 songs as well as 12 chants and I have included a glossary that provides the meanings of key words found in the songs. The fact is, I have been researching this for several years, but started to work on the book seriously about a year and a half ago. People have been singing these songs for years without fully understanding what they have been singing. I believed that we should know what the songs truly mean and decided to get this book done,’ Gopee said.

Gopee attended Naparima College and when he graduated spent some time teaching at the Chatham Government School and Presentation College, Chaguanas. After studying Economics and Sociology at the UWI St Augustine Campus, Gopee headed off to London where he pursued Chartered Accountancy. From London, Gopee moved to

St Lucia working there for a couple of years before returning home to work at the IDC Production Centre. In 1976 he started his own accounting firm, Bob Gopee and Associates.

For over a decade, Gopee served as a director at the Hindi Foundation where he was responsible for the administration of Hindi language teachers in a government sponsored programme. The programme provided funding to have teachers in 25 schools across the country and Gopee insured that the teachers had access to whatever they needed to get their jobs done as effienciently and comfortable as possible.

’I am an advocate of Hindi as a language and believe that we as Trinidadians should all be able to speak more than one language, at least three. We are such a diverse society with East Indians, Africans, Spanish, French, and Syrian. We are in such close proximity to Venezuela, so why not learn to speak the language? I learnt much of the Hindi I know at the Indian High Commission in the programme they provided and the rest, I studied on my own. In other metropolitan countries people speak more than one language, but Trinidadians seem unwilling to learn even a second language,’ Gopee said.

A dedicated member of the Rotary Club International for the past 22 years, Gopee was on two occasions the Assistant Governor of the district, which spans from St Kitts to Guyana. He has also served as district treasurer. Along with his accounting firm, Gopee runs three guest houses, two in Woodbrook and another at Crown Point, Tobago. His entry into the hotelier arena is an interesting story.

’When I was looking for a piece of land to build my offices about 15 years ago, I could not find anything small enough to suit my needs. So when I acquired the land and began construction of a large building, I decided that I did not want to rent to long term tenants. That was when the idea of doing a bed and breakfast came up. Now we have the two hotels here on Picton and the other one in Tobago. We aim at the tourists, but there are people who come from San Fernando or other distant areas and they need to do business at the US Embassy or other places early in the morning, so they stay with us,’ Gopee said.

Geet Arpanam was published in India and released there in March to impressive reviews. Gopee launched the book locally yesterday (sat) at the Divali Nagar, Chaguanas. He is already receiving orders for the book in Suriname and Florida where people saw him with copies of the book and told him they had to have it. Gopee intends to do a second edition of the book later on including the respective music for the songs. He is also hoping to release another book, one about his experiences in the business arena, sometime next year.

’This book was not published as an economic venture, but mainly to get people to fully understand what they have been hearing and singing. As I was approaching 69-years-of-age, I felt that I wanted to present something to the community to mark my 70th birthday, which is not until July next year. So I completed the book ahead of time, but decided to go ahead and publish it. I really never anticipated the measure of response I have been getting. I have not actively been promoting the book as yet, but I’ll have a copy with me and show it to people I know and they immediately express an interest in having it,’ Gopee said.

Among the songs featured in the book is ’Suhaanee Raat’ originally recorded by Mohammed Rafi as well as ’Prabhujee Prabhujee, Prabhujee’ by Esther John. The book begins with a translation of the National Anthem of Trinidad and Tobago and the final song translated is the National Anthem of India. Along with Hindi songs the book also features the translation of lyrics from songs used by the Muslim community.