Yvonne Webb

Pleas­ant, hum­ble and bril­liant, Ravin­dra Ram­rat­tan was a hero in his home­town of Munroe Road, Cunu­pia.When he won the Pres­i­dent's Medal, Gold, in 2002, while a stu­dent at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas, the com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brat­ed with his fam­i­ly. When he mi­grat­ed to study at renowned Uni­ver­si­ties of Cam­bridge, Ox­ford and lat­er, the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics, the suc­cess sto­ry of this hum­ble young man filled his neigh­bours' hearts with pride.Yes­ter­day the com­mu­ni­ty of Munroe Road, Cunu­pia, was thrown in­to sad­ness, as word spread that Ravi, one of their bright­est sons, was among ap­prox­i­mate­ly 68, shot and killed in a ter­ror­ist at­tack at the Nairo­bi's West­gate Shop­ping Mall, Kenya, over the week­end.At the fam­i­ly's home, there was a con­stant flow of mourn­ers and well wish­ers who vis­it­ed to of­fer sym­pa­thy and sup­port to Ravi's par­ents, Bis­nath and Par­batie Ram­rat­tan. Among them, prin­ci­pal of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas, Gary Ribeiro, and mem­bers of staff who taught Ravi.

Griev­ing mom Par­batie Ram­rat­tan held on to a rel­a­tive and cried, as the tragedy, thou­sands of miles away in Kenya, was re­port­ed on CNC3 and pho­tos of the Trinida­di­an schol­ar flashed on the tele­vi­sion screen."I nev­er ex­pect­ed to be do­ing my son's fu­ner­al. I have two sons, (Ravi and Ra­jiv) to do our rites when we die, not us to do their rites," the de­vout Hin­du woman cried."Ravi left me too ear­ly. He should not have died now be­cause he had so much to live for. He was an in­no­cent vic­tim in that sit­u­a­tion."Ravi was not a vi­o­lent per­son," she said com­ment­ing on the sav­age man­ner in which his life was tak­en when Shabab mil­i­tant at­tack­ers launched an at­tack on the mall, killing at least 68 peo­ple and hold­ing oth­ers hostage over the week­end.The be­reaved moth­er said the in­ci­dent "has changed the whole course of every­thing. I have three chil­dren, Ravi, Ra­jiv and Resh­ma but Ravi was our gem."He was our eye­ball. He was the light of the life for every­one, his fam­i­ly, the com­mu­ni­ty, be­cause of his per­son­al­i­ty. He was friend­ly, easy to get along with, al­ways hum­ble, obe­di­ent, al­ways pleas­ant, nev­er gave any­one trou­ble."

She de­scribed her son as a high achiev­er, who ex­celled in every­thing he set out to do, in­clud­ing cop­ping the cov­et­ed Pres­i­dent's Medal, Gold, in 2002."Ravi, in all re­spects, was an ex­cel­lent role mod­el for all oth­er chil­dren as well as his sib­lings. Chil­dren who do well (at Pre­sen­ta­tion) now try to catch up to Ravi's stan­dards. He has set the stage for oth­ers to fol­low." She said four years ago he took up a job in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor in Kenya, to do re­search eco­nom­ics to­wards his PHD, which was his pas­sion, even though he was of­fered to do it at Mc Gill Uni­ver­si­ty, Cana­da.

"He opt­ed to go to Kenya be­cause he want­ed to chal­lenge his mind and Kenya was a chal­lenge."He want­ed to come up with so­lu­tions and cre­ate new ideas be­cause he was do­ing de­vel­op­ment eco­nom­ics, so he went to Kenya to be the in the work­place that would give him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to open fur­ther win­dows to­wards his PHD, when every­thing came to an end."Par­batie said she last spoke to her son on his 30th birth­day on Sep­tem­ber 2 and then com­mu­ni­cat­ed with him by e-mail a week ago. She said she last saw him in June 2012 when he came home for a fam­i­ly func­tion. The fam­i­ly had planned to vis­it him next year.

All the plans crashed on Sat­ur­day, when friends no­ti­fied them he was miss­ing af­ter the hostage siege."They (his friends) kept us up­dat­ed and they searched day and night un­til they found his body on Sun­day and called us."She said: "This is not some­thing I ever ex­pect­ed. I don't know what to feel. For me as a moth­er, Ravi has left me too ear­ly. He should not have died now. He had too much to live for."She said her oth­er chil­dren Ra­jiv, an en­gi­neer, res­i­dent in Eng­land and her daugh­ter, Resh­ma, an at­tor­ney-at-law are all torn up by the news."The pain we are feel­ing now, will be with us for the rest of our lives," she said.Her hus­band, who held a grad­u­a­tion pho­to of his late son, said: "Ravi was a goal-ori­ent­ed, so­cia­ble and fun-lov­ing in­di­vid­ual. He loved na­ture and the sim­ple life, al­though he could rub shoul­ders at the high­est lev­el of the World Bank."In­stead of sim­ply stay­ing with­in the norm of grad­u­at­ing and stay­ing in T&T, he ex­plored the world, un­til this un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion.He said even though Ravi spent a short time on this earth, "it would have been very ful­fill­ing and what­ev­er his fate has tak­en him, he would have lived a full life at his age."Ram­rat­tan said Ravi set stan­dards for his sib­lings, Ra­jiv, al­so a past Pre­sen­ta­tion stu­dent and Resh­ma a St Au­gus­tine Girls' High School pupil, who both went on to win na­tion­al schol­ar­ships."I am very proud of my chil­dren, de­spite the sit­u­a­tion," Ram­rat­tan said.