Mutyala Satyanand was born in Fuji to second generation immigrant family who descended from indentured laborers from India. At the age of 14 he left Fiji to attend high school in Wanganui. A few years later Mutyala was admitted to Otago Medical School, then graduated with an MbChB. Intending to leave for Fiji after his education but his best plans were disrupted by World War II. He stayed on before ultimately deciding to stay and open his own practice in Auckland, where he pioneered what is later known as sports medicine, treating rugby players, cricketers and jockeys of their ailments.
He married a Fijian-Indian Nurse from Suva and started a family. Their son Anand grew up in the eastern suburbs of Auckland, went to Sacred Heart College and, having failed to gain admittance to Otago Med School, took up law back in Auckland and became a lawyer. Slowly he rose to the top as a fair and just man of law by the people. Having worked with both Labour and National, he is the ideal material for his current office.
However, what kind of people is Sir Anand? He belongs to the small class of what I would call the Minority Ascendancy, who are self-made men and women who had worked through the ladders of social hierarchy with their own might. like the AhChee family.(Old enough to remember Georgie Pie? The AhChees started it.)
The Ascendancy always had a ambiguous attitude to their culture identity, i.e. they are partly proud of and partly embarrassed by their origins, and even more aware that they are, ultimately, different to the majority. The social rift back in Fiji runs neatly along lines of ethnicity and religion, while the late Dr Saty would consider himself more Indian, Sir Anand would have tried hard to define himself for the 66 odd years he lived. These are the people of no culture barriers, however these are also the people of nowhere.
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What I thought would be a series of objective informational post ended up being another piece of self-centered reflections and perhaps rant; I promise that the next post will be objecive to the extreme and totally free of personal opinion:)
And it should have been "November" in the title anyway. I ran out of time and energy to write due to exams. In the past two weeks I seriously considered to remove the first two posts because I may never finish the third. Nevertheless, I decided to hold on and finally finished this mini-series. Hence I am a better person, take that.
P.S.Improvements to these posts will be made piece by piece so come back once in a while to see the updated versions.
