Shas­tri Boodan

Lo­cal In­di­an cul­ture has suf­fered a blow be­cause of the COVID-19 virus, fol­low­ing the death of a pop­u­lar clas­si­cal singer.

Jamie Heer­alal, 42, a lo­cal In­di­an clas­si­cal and film song singer suc­cumbed to the virus around 9.30 am yes­ter­day.

A close rel­a­tive of Heer­alal con­firmed her pass­ing and said she was known in the mu­si­cal world by her maid­en name Jamie Ramkissoon. She per­formed with the Melody Stars In­di­an Or­ches­tra and free­lanced with oth­er bands.

The rel­a­tive, who did not wish to be named, said, “She got sick ten days ago and was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Cen­tre and then she was ward­ed at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal where her con­di­tion wors­ened. She texted her daugh­ter Karuna, 23, sev­er­al times and told her she missed and loved her. This is so hard that this young woman was tak­en away at such an ear­ly age.”

The rel­a­tive added, “She was well loved by the com­mu­ni­ty, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al cul­tur­al events, in­clud­ing Ram­leela. She loved her cul­ture.”

Heer­alal lived in Char­lieville and was orig­i­nal­ly from Fe­lic­i­ty where she would spend most of her time.

The rel­a­tive said Heer­alal’s on­ly child, Karuna and hus­band Kr­ishen­dath Heer­alal were in­con­solable. But for­tu­nate­ly, they did not con­tract the virus.

Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo, the Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture, al­so lament­ed Heer­alal’s death due to COVID.

Man­ga­roo said he in­tro­duced Jamie twice on the stages of Di­vali Na­gar and de­scribed her as an amaz­ing tal­ent.

Man­ga­roo said, “I am deeply sad­dened, a loss of any hu­man life is dis­tress­ing. Here we have a woman who tru­ly loved her cul­ture. She had a voice sim­i­lar to that of Il­la Arun. I am urg­ing every­one to take the nec­es­sary mea­sures, fol­low the rules to pre­vent con­tract­ing and spread­ing COVID-19.”

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Health re­port­ed nine COVID deaths yes­ter­day and 327 new cas­es.

It al­so not­ed that the num­ber of pa­tients in hos­pi­tal had fall­en from the all-time high of 494 on Mon­day to 459 yes­ter­day.