Hindi Prachaar Sabha honours Randall Butisingh

…hailed as world’s oldest blogger and Hindi teacher

Mr Misri Persaud of the Guyana Hindu Prachaar Sabha, left, collects the award on behalf of Randall Butisingh from Indian High Commissioner to Guyana Sabeet Kumar Mandal.

Guyanese Randall Butisingh, known as the world’s oldest blogger and a prominent teacher of the Hindi language, has been honoured by the Guyana Hindu Prachaar Sabha.

Butisingh was honoured for his work in promoting and teaching Hindi language when the Indian Cultural Centre hosted a programme Saturday to celebrate World Hindi Day.
Mr. Misri Persaud of the Guyana Hindu Prachaar Sabha collected the award on behalf of Butisingh.

Butisingh was born in Guyana on December 1, 1912. He grew up in Buxton, East Coast Demerara, where he received his primary education. In 1925, he qualified and was the first runner-up for the first Buxton Scholarship.

In 1927, he passed the School Leaving Examination and became a Pupil Teacher at the age of 15.
This was the start of a 45 year-long career, with a few short breaks, in which he served as a Class II Certified and Trained Teacher until his retirement in January, 1972.

During his career, he taught mainly in Buxton, with short assignments in Lusignan, Non Pareil, Ann’s Grove and Mon Repos.
His literary accomplishments include: A paper on “Hindi in Multicultural Guyana” and a translation of a biography of Mahatma Gandhi – from Hindi to English.

He became a member of the Guyana Hindi Prachar Sabha in 1976 and also served as the Sabha’s Hindi correspondent and editor of its journal, “Gyanda.”

Among the areas of his interest are Comparative Religion, Eastern Philosophy, the computer,  and, of course, teaching Hindi. In his late 70’s he learnt to read the Arabic script and is able to read from the Holy Quran. He can also recite a few of the Suras from memory. He can also read Urdu, a sister language of Hindi, written in the Persian script to a fair extent.

At age 89, he began learning to play the recorder and according to him he has acquired some degree of proficiency. He also practises on the keyboard.
Now in this, his 98th year, he is studying Spanish and art.