OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

A lega­cy of aid­ing oth­ers and a ro­bust en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it, tinged with al­le­ga­tions were some of the com­ments which marked the farewell of Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh.

The busi­ness­man and fi­nancier of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress was laid to rest yes­ter­day, sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly and friends.

The 78-year-old Gal­barans­ingh died on Jan­u­ary 29 af­ter bat­tling can­cer for the last four years.

The fu­ner­al, which was done un­der Hin­du rites was held at his home at Bayshore and then pro­ceed­ed to the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion site. In at­ten­dance were many from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, well-wish­ers and politi­cians in­clud­ing Anil Roberts, Dami­an Ly­der, Sadiq Baksh, Car­los John, Dr Tim Gopeesingh and Gary Grif­fith.

De­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy, Dr Steve Ra­j­pat­ty, who said he was an un­der­study to Gal­barans­ingh, said, “The Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh that ap­peared in the me­dia through­out the last 22 years was not the Ish that we knew and loved. While Ish was cer­tain­ly hand­some, well-dressed, and icon­ic in his sun­glass­es, the Ish we knew and loved was al­so ex­treme­ly hard-work­ing, de­ter­mined, ded­i­cat­ed, self-dis­ci­plined, kind, loy­al, gen­er­ous, and most of all, brave. He nev­er wa­vered in any­thing he set out to do.”

He added that Gal­barans­ingh had no tol­er­ance for gos­sip and was an in­spi­ra­tion and men­tor to many.

Ra­j­pat­ty said, “There is not a sin­gle neg­a­tive thing I can say about Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh. I nev­er saw him dis­re­spect his el­ders, fail to up­hold his dhar­ma, or per­form his pre­scribed du­ty.”

Gal­barans­ingh was charged in 2005 in con­nec­tion with a cor­rup­tion mat­ter over the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Last year the DPP dis­con­tin­ued one of the cas­es against him as well as late for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day.

In her trib­ute, Gal­barans­ingh’s daugh­ter, Neisha, said life would not be the same for the fam­i­ly now that her fa­ther was gone.

“You didn’t pre­pare us for your de­par­ture, but I hope the lessons you taught us will help us forge ahead in the fam­i­ly and the em­pire that you built,” she said.

Neisha de­scribed her fa­ther as a teacher.

“Every de­ci­sion I’ve made, I’ve al­ways con­sult­ed you and tak­en your guid­ance. I hope I’m able to fill your shoes to car­ry on in the fam­i­ly and busi­ness­es you built and worked so tire­less­ly for your en­tire life,’ she added.

Al­so pay­ing trib­ute was for­mer UNC gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and MP Gan­ga Singh. He said the coun­try should be grate­ful for Gal­barans­ingh’s con­tri­bu­tion.

“This coun­try owes Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh a debt of eter­nal grat­i­tude and ap­pre­ci­a­tion. I have first-hand knowl­edge of Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh’s bril­liance when I served with him and a se­lect group un­der the lead­er­ship of Bas­deo Pan­day in the then Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress strat­e­gy and cam­paign com­mit­tees,” Singh said.

He added that Gal­barans­ingh was al­so in­no­v­a­tive.

“One must re­call that with Ish­war’s piv­otal role in cer­tain key con­stituen­cies in the cor­ri­dor, the East-West cor­ri­dor, the UNC won the elec­tions in the year 2000, 19 seats to PNM’s 17. In­no­va­tion, an­a­lyt­ics, and gran­u­lar ex­e­cu­tion were hall­marks of Ish­war in the busi­ness are­na. In the words of his long-stand­ing em­ploy­ee and friend Am­rit Maraj, ‘Ish was a bril­liant busi­ness­man with plen­ty of fore­sight’,” he said.

Gal­barans­ingh was a fa­ther of four and had ei­ther owned or had shares in sev­er­al busi­ness­es, in­clud­ing Plat­inum Mo­tors, the Grafton Beach Ho­tel and Le Grand Cour­land in To­ba­go, Singh’s Au­to Rentals, Club Liq­uid, Roy­al Cas­tle, and North­ern Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed (NCL).

In March last year, Gal­barans­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that the Pi­ar­co Air­port cor­rup­tion cas­es hurt his fam­i­ly’s life.