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Friday, February 28, 2025

Guardians of the Peo­ple

Widower struggles in dilapidated Siparia home, unable to care for children

by

38 days ago
20250120

Seat­ed in a tat­tered ham­mock, swing­ing list­less­ly in his ram­shackle home atop a hill over­look­ing a grave­yard, Dhan­raj Soni­lal’s heart has not been whole since 2022. That was the year he lost his beloved De­o­matie, moth­er to his two chil­dren and his oth­er half.

“I miss every­thing about her. We used to op­er­ate like friends, not hus­band and wife. Every foot­step I make she would be with me. That is what I miss, her com­pa­ny,” he said, fight­ing back the tears.

“That was a per­son I met and I nev­er knew I would meet a per­son like that. Every­thing was just per­fect about her,” he said.

The 56-year-old man said her sick­ness came sud­den­ly and mer­ci­less­ly.

“Well, just like that she end up get­ting sick. She got a sore on her foot and she re­mained a while with it. Her foot start­ed to swell. But even­tu­al­ly, I said, ‘Girl, it looks like the oth­er foot is swelling too,’ and she said yes and then her whole body start­ed to swell.

“She start­ed to get sick more and more un­til she end­ed up in a wheel­chair and af­ter that, she died about six months af­ter, ac­tu­al­ly maybe four to five months,” he re­called.

A rel­a­tive lat­er ex­plained that De­o­matie was di­a­bet­ic.

Since then, Soni­lal has lost his zeal for life.

The fam­i­ly’s home is lo­cat­ed at the top of a hill over­look­ing a grave­yard. De­o­matie is not buried there. She was cre­mat­ed un­der Hin­du rites.

Sep­a­rat­ing the liv­ing from the dead is a small gar­den. Soni­lal said when De­o­matie was alive, they earned their liv­ing from it.

“When she was around, I used to plant fine crops, some­times bo­di, and she would go out and sell it; cu­cum­ber she used to go right down the hill there, or by the mar­ket and sell,” he said.

Since her death, the gar­den has been ne­glect­ed. Soni­lal said he gets dizzy spells when­ev­er he works the land alone. His in­abil­i­ty to work has plunged the fam­i­ly in­to ab­ject pover­ty.

He said his 17-year-old daugh­ter has tried to shake him out of his grief.

“Some­times, the girl would say ‘Dad­dy, Mum­my gone al­ready, you know, and we have to live with it.’”

Their wood­en home, made most­ly of ply­wood, al­most par­al­lels Soni­lal’s state—bro­ken and in des­per­ate need of a help­ing hand.

There are large holes in the walls and a leak­ing roof. An out­house in the back­yard is an in­di­ca­tion that the struc­ture does not have pipe-borne wa­ter. The two-room house is sparse­ly fur­nished, with two beds in one room for Soni­lal and his 15-year-old son, while the oth­er is emp­ty. Some shoes and bits of cloth­ing are strewn on the floor giv­ing the im­pres­sion that a girl once lived there.

When asked where his daugh­ter sleeps, Soni­lal said the Form Four stu­dent re­cent­ly left and stays with her aunt, as there is no elec­tric­i­ty for her to fin­ish her school as­sign­ments.

He fears that the 20-year-old struc­ture is on the brink of col­lapse.

There is a gen­er­a­tor in the yard but Soni­lal said they re­cent­ly dis­cov­ered some­thing was wrong with it.

“Yes­ter­day my son said, ‘Dad­dy let us watch a lit­tle news nah,’ so he bought gas for the gen­er­a­tor, but when we start­ed it, it didn’t want to work. So he went on his bed and said, ‘Dad­dy, we could have been watch­ing news all now?’”

Com­ing up the hill to the home with his bi­cy­cle in tow, the 15-year-old gave a weary greet­ing. It was clear he had not been to school that day. Soni­lal said since De­o­matie’s death, the teen has lost in­ter­est in his stud­ies and has now be­come the fam­i­ly’s pri­ma­ry bread­win­ner.

“If some­one has a lit­tle work to do, he would go do that, so that is how we main­tain­ing right now,” Soni­lal said.

How­ev­er, that usu­al­ly means liv­ing off a mea­gre $400 for the month.

“Right now, we just eat­ing on­ly, the rest of the things we have to do with­out. The coun­cil­lor does drop a lit­tle ham­per for me and some­times a neigh­bour would have a ham­per and choose me to drop it for,” Soni­lal said.

“She (his daugh­ter) gets help from the school to trav­el. Since I got sick, I spoke with her prin­ci­pal and the prin­ci­pal said they would pro­vide that help for her. Some­times, she does go to school with­out mon­ey be­cause I don’t have any to give her,” he said.

Doc­tors have not been able to di­ag­nose the cause of his con­stant dizzy spells. All he knows is that it start­ed short­ly af­ter De­o­matie died and af­ter three trips to the hos­pi­tal by am­bu­lance, he is now afraid his grief will kill him.

“I think about why this had to hap­pen, why I feel sick be­cause I was a man that first thing in the morn­ing, I am in the gar­den at six o’clock to pro­vide and for the least, I would make $1,000 a week go­ing to the mar­ket and now I can’t hold a $1,000 in six months,” he ex­plained.

All Soni­lal wants is as­sis­tance to re­pair and for­ti­fy the house for his chil­dren’s sake.

“In case any­thing hap­pens to me, they will have some­thing,” he said.

He al­so be­lieves if the home is in a bet­ter con­di­tion and he has one less thing to wor­ry about, he would be in a bet­ter po­si­tion to re­turn to work the land that he and De­o­matie once toiled on. He al­so wants his son to fin­ish sec­ondary school.

Soni­lal and his son do not have a cell­phone. Any­one wish­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly with their home or their im­me­di­ate needs can con­tact their rel­a­tive Neelawa­tee at 275-0422.


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