Bhai

James Ramlall, also known as Bhai (26 January 1935 – 19 December 2018), was a Surinamese poet.

Biography Bhai was born in the former district Suriname. After getting his teaching degree, he became a teacher at an elementary school in Harmelen, Netherlands. After three years of teaching, he decided to become a student. First he studied Dutch language and literature, and pedagogy. Later he went on to study Indian philosophy and religion, and wrote his doctoral thesis on "The Problem of Being in Heidegger and Sankara".

When Bhai returned to his native Suriname,

Bhai wrote poetry mainly in Dutch, but some was in Hindi, which was published in the magazine Soela. The poetry can be described as philosophical and meditative. The Dutch work was bundled into Vindu (Hindi for: Secret, 1982) from which the concrete-imaging of his earlier poetry completely disappeared. For this bundle, Bhai received the Literature Prize of Suriname 1980-1982.

In 2003, Bhai received the Gaanman Gazon Matodja Award.