SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Dr John Mc Ken­zie Bharath is fast ap­proach­ing 100 and de­fy­ing all odds.

His lov­ing car­er-grand­daugh­ter, An­jali Bharath said, “He’s my sweet grand­fa­ther. He has a sweet tooth, but he doesn’t have di­a­betes. He starts his day with cof­fee which he likes creamy; sweet­ened with con­densed milk, has a hearty break­fast – at times, a full Eng­lish break­fast – and he’s healthy, fun-lov­ing, en­ter­pris­ing and kind.”

Born to James Ganesh and Sookhea Door­gas­ingh in Tu­na­puna on Jan­u­ary 6, 1927, in­to a tra­di­tion­al Hin­du fam­i­ly, he is the younger sib­ling of his broth­er Welling­ton (de­ceased). “I used to be called small son­ny and my broth­er big son­ny,” he hap­pi­ly told Guardian Me­dia.

The Cana­di­an Mis­sion In­di­an School (CMI) in Tu­na­puna and St Mary’s Col­lege (CIC) in Port-of -Spain shaped his child­hood and aca­d­e­m­ic years.

“At­tend­ing the Ara­malaya Pres­by­ter­ian Church helped mould me and my way of life de­spite hav­ing be­longed to a typ­i­cal Hin­du home, and I was proud to be one of the lead singers in the church choir,” Bharath an­nounced.

“I did not find it dif­fi­cult to main­tain my equa­nim­i­ty be­tween both worlds – the Pres­by­ter­ian world and the Hin­du world – as I im­bibed the best el­e­ments of both worlds. I ben­e­fit­ed from both sides of the re­li­gious di­vide, and I am a bet­ter per­son for it, be­cause of the rich mixed re­li­gious and cul­tur­al en­vi­ron­ment in which I grew up.”

Ed­u­ca­tion-fo­cused,

Ser­vice-cen­tred

He is a dis­tin­guished den­tal sur­geon, for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an and life­long civic leader whose ser­vice to Trinidad and To­ba­go spans more than six decades. Ed­u­cat­ed at the Nair Den­tal Hos­pi­tal in Mum­bai and lat­er trained at the Roy­al Col­lege of Sur­geons in Bris­tol, he built an out­stand­ing ca­reer in den­tistry while ded­i­cat­ing him­self to pub­lic health, so­cial de­vel­op­ment and na­tion­al ser­vice.

Through­out his pro­fes­sion­al life, he ex­tend­ed his ex­per­tise far be­yond pri­vate prac­tice. He con­duct­ed oral health out­reach pro­grammes in schools across T&T, pro­mot­ing den­tal hy­giene and pre­ven­ta­tive care among gen­er­a­tions of stu­dents. Res­i­dents of the Port-of-Spain, Car­rera and Gold­en Grove pris­ons, as well as the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre, al­so ben­e­fit­ed, re­flect­ing his deep com­mit­ment to eq­ui­table health­care for all cit­i­zens.

Bharath al­so served in pub­lic of­fice as the par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive for St Au­gus­tine from 1966 to 1971 and lat­er as a sen­a­tor on six sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions. Dur­ing his par­lia­men­tary ca­reer, he cham­pi­oned pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing the Squat­ters Bill, which sought to reg­u­larise in­for­mal set­tle­ment and pro­vide dig­ni­ty and se­cu­ri­ty to vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

A Ro­tary World

Bharath helped found the Ro­tary Club of St Au­gus­tine, in part, to im­prove life for the near­by com­mu­ni­ty and ex­pand its reach to as­sist com­mu­ni­ties through­out T&T.

His de­sire to help es­tab­lish the branch be­gan while he was a uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent in In­dia, where he met the pres­i­dent of Del­hi’s Ro­tary Club and oth­er Ro­tar­i­ans and was able to ex­change ideas about char­i­ta­ble projects.

Up­on his re­turn to T&T, he lived in St Au­gus­tine, close to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), and in an area with nu­mer­ous med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, known as the Harley Street of T&T. He ob­served that there were no Ro­tary clubs in ei­ther area but re­alised that many res­i­dents’ qual­i­fi­ca­tions would have ben­e­fit­ed the com­mu­ni­ty of East Trinidad.

Bharath is cur­rent­ly the old­est ac­tive char­ter mem­ber of the St Au­gus­tine club and has de­vot­ed decades to hu­man­i­tar­i­an and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, in­clud­ing sup­port for ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes and Ro­tary’s glob­al po­lio erad­i­ca­tion cam­paign.

Projects

One of his char­i­ta­ble club projects en­abled a young fe­male res­i­dent of Tu­na­puna with a sep­tal de­fect, who could not be treat­ed in Trinidad, to un­der­go suc­cess­ful heart surgery in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Through fundrais­ing, ad­vo­ca­cy and lead­er­ship, Bharath has helped chan­nel com­mu­ni­ty re­sources to­wards ed­u­ca­tion, de­vel­op­ment and health, and his per­son­al com­mit­ment has in­spired oth­ers to sus­tain those ef­forts. But, not to be out­done, in 2022, fol­low­ing one of his most sig­nif­i­cant projects, he in­tro­duced some adults to T&T for the very first time.

Ro­tary-Ukrain­ian Con­nec­tion

In Feb­ru­ary 2022, the im­pact of the Rus­so-Ukrain­ian war, which re­sult­ed in a refugee cri­sis, caught Bharath’s at­ten­tion.

In No­vem­ber 2022, he self-fund­ed and do­nat­ed a mo­bile den­tal unit to serve Ukraine’s re­mote vil­lages near the front­line and, when nec­es­sary, peo­ple who were un­able to ac­cess con­ven­tion­al den­tal fa­cil­i­ties. This gave teeth to an ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing the Caribbean and Great Britain and Ire­land ICC, as­sist­ed by the Ro­tary In­ter­coun­try Com­mit­tees (ICC).

The ICC said Bharath’s sto­ry was not sim­ply about longevi­ty, but about recog­nis­ing suf­fer­ing and choos­ing to act. It viewed his ini­tia­tive as a per­son­al gift and the col­lab­o­ra­tion as one gen­er­ous idea that be­came a work­ing treat­ment fa­cil­i­ty.

Bharath’s Ukrain­ian act of kind­ness saw him re­ceive a mes­sage from some in­ter­na­tion­al Ro­tar­i­ans: “Where is Trinidad? First time we are hear­ing of Trinidad. Such a tiny coun­try in the world, and there are peo­ple there with big hearts.”

Dr John Mc Ken­zie Bharath, the Reg­u­lar Man

He cur­rent­ly re­sides in St Au­gus­tine, Trinidad. His great­est joy is his fam­i­ly, which in­cludes spend­ing time with his 13 grand­chil­dren: An­jali, Videsh, Richard, Rishi, Ria, Renu­ka, Karuna, Vi­dal, Anous­ka, Aroura, Valmi­ki, Adi­ti and Am­bi­ka; and 13 great-grand­chil­dren: Koa, Ky­lo, Karter, Kruz, Vyan, Veer, Vi­vaan, Ava, Saam, Vi­o­lette, Josephine, Ros­alie and Richard II, most of whom re­side in Lon­don.

He reg­u­lar­ly trav­els back and forth to the UK, where he lived for many years with his wife, Chan­dra Bharath (de­ceased), and their four chil­dren: sons Vas­ant and Vaid, and daugh­ters Am­rit and An­jani. While Bharath en­joys Lon­don sum­mers, he favours T&T’s warmth dur­ing the win­ter.

He is al­so very jovial, loves sweet­bread and pone, and favours cur­ry. He has re­cent­ly be­gun tak­ing an in­ter­est in shrimp and fish. He loves be­ing around oth­ers and mak­ing them com­fort­able, en­joys the beach, and is the mas­ter of his wardrobe and the cat­walk.

Bharath was an ar­dent and reg­u­lar crick­et play­er and a for­mer dancer with the dis­tin­guished Beryl Mc Burnie at her Lit­tle Carib Dance The­atre in Wood­brook. “I think by now that the­atre should have been a mas­sive struc­ture,” he stat­ed.

“Grand­pa John is a gem of a per­son and he loves my cook­ing,” An­jali proud­ly stat­ed. “I grew up with my grand­par­ents, so I con­sid­er him my fa­ther and we are very close. He re­mains an ac­tive pres­ence in the in­sti­tu­tions he helped to build and his con­tin­ued par­tic­i­pa­tion is it­self a form of in­flu­ence – a liv­ing demon­stra­tion that a life of ser­vice is not a phase, but a call­ing.

“His sense of fash­ion and strength of mind place him among one of the sharpest per­sons, not on­ly in wit and mem­o­ry, but in terms of his sharp sense of dress­ing. He is al­ways calm and gen­er­ous to a fault. He is a man of prin­ci­ple who is fear­less in his con­vic­tions, speaks his mind and de­fends what is right. He is a per­son who al­ways puts the well-be­ing of oth­ers first. He’s a true pa­tri­arch.”

Dr John Mc Ken­zie Bharath spends a lot of time in his gar­den, on his iPad and at­tend­ing so­cial events.