RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

When lo­co­mo­tives haul­ing sug­ar­cane rum­bled through Val­ley­line in Bar­rack­pore on their way to the Usine Ste Madeleine sug­ar fac­to­ry in the 1990s, vil­lage life re­volved around the sug­ar in­dus­try.

Be­fore sun­rise in the crop sea­son (Jan­u­ary to May), cane cut­ters head­ed in­to the cane­fields while farm­ers queued at the cane weigh­ing scales stretch­ing from Num­ber Two to Num­ber Sev­en Scale along the Rochard Dou­glas Road, com­mon­ly known as “Val­ley­line”, to sell their har­vest.

Pen­sion­er Has­shim Mo­hammed said sug­ar con­nect­ed vil­lages and sup­port­ed liveli­hoods, while the weigh­ing yards and cane­fields served as a dai­ly meet­ing place for vil­lagers to share good mo­ments and bad.

Now, 23 years af­ter the clo­sure of Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed, the weigh yards are emp­ty, fields are over­grown and train tracks have dis­ap­peared.

Road­side ven­dors, mi­ni marts, dou­bles stands, bars, live­stock farms and small fam­i­ly busi­ness­es have cropped up, trans­form­ing the Val­ley­line.

The last sug­ar train and mem­o­ries of a gold­en era

Stand­ing be­side the for­mer rail­way at Num­ber Two Junc­tion Scale, Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj said the lo­ca­tion once served as one of the busiest cen­tres of ac­tiv­i­ty in Bar­rack­pore.

“This is Num­ber Two Junc­tion Scale, where the last sug­ar train de­part­ed,” Ma­haraj re­called.

“It is a place of tremen­dous his­to­ry and nos­tal­gia.”

He ex­plained that cane har­vest­ed from sur­round­ing dis­tricts was brought to the scale on “tasker” trucks be­fore be­ing loaded on­to the lo­co­mo­tive bound for the fac­to­ry.

“This wasn’t just a place of trade. It was the heart of the com­mu­ni­ty where peo­ple shared their lives, built friend­ships, sup­port­ed each oth­er and shared meals,” Ma­haraj re­called.

“That sense of ca­ma­raderie and broth­er­hood held com­mu­ni­ties to­geth­er dur­ing dif­fi­cult times,” he added.

Ma­haraj said he re­mem­bers dur­ing his school­boy years, chil­dren wait­ing along the tracks as the lo­co­mo­tive passed.

“We used to run along­side the trains and pull off pieces of sug­ar cane to chew. It was a re­al hap­py time.”

Life af­ter Ca­roni: sur­vival and rein­ven­tion

In 2003, when Ca­roni closed down, Ma­haraj said fam­i­lies were dis­rupt­ed and al­co­holism be­came ram­pant.

“There were train­ing pro­grammes for ex-work­ers but fam­i­lies were left to fend for them­selves,” he said.

Some res­i­dents turned to cul­ti­vat­ing short crops, while oth­ers es­tab­lished road­side busi­ness­es, en­tered re­tail, trans­port or con­struc­tion, or be­gan vend­ing at the grow­ing road­side mar­ket.

“Peo­ple found ways to cope eco­nom­i­cal­ly, but they al­so had to cope emo­tion­al­ly,” Ma­haraj said, yet they con­tin­ued ed­u­cat­ing their chil­dren, build­ing homes and sup­port­ing their com­mu­ni­ties.”

At Kan­hai Trace, South, As­gar­ali Wa­jad­hali, 78, said the re­silience of Val­ley­line res­i­dents must be ad­mired. De­spite his ad­vanced age, he still plants a gar­den even though he had a ma­jor op­er­a­tion on his head.

“Farm­ing is in our blood, even though sug­ar is gone, we still plant and mind an­i­mals,” he said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Hashim Mo­hammed, who has lived in the Val­ley­line area for about 60 years, said the com­mu­ni­ty has ex­pe­ri­enced sev­er­al ma­jor clo­sures dur­ing his life­time.

“They shut down the rice in­dus­try, then the sug­ar in­dus­try and then the oil in­dus­try, but the Val­ley­line peo­ple re­mained re­source­ful even though it was hard,” Mo­hammed said.

From sug­ar es­tates to small busi­ness­es

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Haseeb Mo­hammed, ex­plained that many res­i­dents sur­vived the clo­sure of the sug­ar in­dus­try by di­ver­si­fy­ing in­to live­stock and crop farm­ing.

“Our fam­i­ly went in­to poul­try and cat­tle rear­ing, and so we are able to send our chil­dren to uni­ver­si­ty, but when they fin­ish, there is no guar­an­tee of jobs. It is wor­ri­some,” he said.

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed added that over the past few years, cat­tle thieves have been ram­pant in the Val­ley­line area.

There have al­so been a num­ber of home in­va­sions and even mur­ders. At Num­ber Two Junc­tion, Par­ba­tee Too­phanie re­called how she lost her hus­band, At­wa­roo Too­phanie, in June 2012 af­ter he was chopped to death by armed ban­dits who broke in­to their home on the cor­ner of Rochard Road and Rochard Dou­glas Road.

Par­ba­tee, who moved to Val­ley­line af­ter mar­ry­ing at age 16, said life has changed since the days of sug­ar. Her son, Dyanand, now runs the bar, but busi­ness re­mains dif­fi­cult, and com­pe­ti­tion is stiff.

“This junc­tion alone once had about six bars not too long ago, but since they raised tax­es, a few closed down. We sup­port each oth­er. Every­body opens, every­body sells, and every­body has their own cus­tomers,” she added.

She not­ed that food busi­ness­es have ex­pand­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly in re­cent years.

With em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties lim­it­ed, she said many res­i­dents have turned to self-em­ploy­ment.

“We’re afraid to stay open late. Now we close by 11 pm.”

A new gen­er­a­tion search­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ties

For­mer sug­ar work­er Rooplal Ju­goon, 78, re­mem­bers when find­ing work was rel­a­tive­ly straight­for­ward.

“If you want­ed a day’s work, you went to the es­tate and asked,” he said.

“There was al­ways work.”

With high un­em­ploy­ment, Ju­goon said young peo­ple to­day need­ed bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties to earn an hon­est liv­ing.

De­onar­ine Bis­soon, 69, agrees, say­ing sports can help sus­tain the com­mu­ni­ty as they did in the past.

He said in the 1960s his fa­ther, Ben­ny Bis­soon, helped es­tab­lish the Val­ley­line Sports Club, which took its name from the rail­way line pass­ing through the vil­lage.

“My fa­ther was one of the found­ing crick­eters,” he said, but not­ed that many recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed over the years.

Bis­soon said he has tied ropes around dam­aged struc­tures him­self to pre­vent ac­ci­dents while wait­ing for re­pairs.

“I want the Min­istry of Sport to come and see these ne­glect­ed fa­cil­i­ties.”

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the num­ber of aban­doned an­i­mals in the dis­trict.

“We have plen­ty of stray dogs and cats.”

“Why can’t there be a prop­er shel­ter for them?”

Bis­soon said Bar­rack­pore has pro­duced sev­er­al crick­eters who have rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go and the West In­dies at the high­est lev­el. Among them are for­mer West In­dies leg-spin­ner and T20 World Cup win­ner Samuel Badree, who was born and raised in the dis­trict and be­came one of the world’s lead­ing Twen­ty20 bowlers; for­mer West In­dies Test open­er and long-serv­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go cap­tain Daren Gan­ga and his younger broth­er Sher­win Gan­ga, who rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go as an all-rounder; as well as Ja­son Mo­hammed, who went on to cap­tain the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Force and rep­re­sent­ed the West In­dies in One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als and Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als. For­mer West In­dies leg-spin­ner Ra­jin­dra Dhan­raj al­so emerged from the Bar­rack­pore com­mu­ni­ty to play Test and One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al crick­et.

De­spite in­fra­struc­tur­al and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges, Bis­soon said the peo­ple of Val­ley­line have adapt­ed since the clo­sure of Ca­roni, re­main­ing ful­ly root­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty their fam­i­lies helped build. For him and oth­ers, Val­ley­line’s sto­ry is no longer de­fined sole­ly by the rise and fall of sug­ar, but by the re­silience of this close-knit vil­lage fam­i­ly, who use sports to uni­fy them through chal­lenges.