Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@guardian.co.tt

Tak­ing a head­count of the num­ber of peo­ple at the pub­lic view­ing ar­eas for the fu­ner­al at the car park of the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) yes­ter­day, some­one who is not fa­mil­iar with this coun­try could have been fooled in­to think­ing the im­pact of Bas­deo Pan­day was mere­ly mod­est.

But a ten-minute dri­ve along the South Trunk Road, near the mouth of the Godineau Riv­er, would shat­ter that per­cep­tion.

Hours be­fore his body ar­rived at the Shore of Peace cre­ma­tion site, hun­dreds wait­ed for their for­mer prime min­is­ter.

Skip­ping SAPA al­to­geth­er, they stood be­hind bar­ri­ers un­der the watch of men and women in tac­ti­cal wear, wait­ing to catch a fi­nal glimpse of a man whom many said was worth the wait in the un­for­giv­ing heat.

For for­mer fire­fight­er Kit­wa­roo Ram­danan, Pan­day rep­re­sent­ed a true cham­pi­on of the poor.

“I was in­spired by how he car­ried him­self, so I had to come and pay homage to him. He did a lot for the op­pressed, es­pe­cial­ly the sug­ar work­ers,” Ram­danan said, lean­ing against a po­lice-placed bar­ri­cade.

Next to him wav­ing a blue flag adorned with Pan­day’s pic­ture, Melvin Ho­sein told Guardian Me­dia that noth­ing could have kept him from at­tend­ing in per­son.

“He loved to help peo­ple. He did so much. He’s a great man, and I hope his leg­end lives on for a very long time. To­day was his last day on Earth, and I had to see him,” Ho­sein said.

For­mer MP for Siparia Govin­dra Roop­nar­ine al­so cred­it­ed Pan­day for be­ing his po­lit­i­cal men­tor when, to­geth­er, they formed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

“He meant quite a lot to me, and I fol­lowed in his foot­steps and I know he’d pre­fer to be with the grass­roots peo­ple where I am to­day, rather than in the dig­ni­tary tent,” Roop­nar­ine said, mo­tion­ing to a white tent set aside for a se­lect few.

One of the peo­ple as­signed a seat there was Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who ar­rived with tears in her eyes as she greet­ed those wait­ing on Pan­day’s body to ar­rive. She, too, hes­i­tat­ed at first to sit there.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne were al­so in at­ten­dance.

Short­ly af­ter mid­day, the singing of bha­jans was re­placed by a rev­er­ent si­lence. Pan­day’s body, ac­com­pa­nied by a mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion, had ar­rived at a place where Hin­dus be­lieve the soul would be sep­a­rat­ed from the body.

As the cof­fin, draped in the red, white and black na­tion­al flag, made its way past the crowd, no one spoke. The si­lence was punc­tu­at­ed by the pun­dit’s chant­i­ng of, “Om Namo Bha­ga­vate Va­sude­vaya,” a prayer to in­voke pos­i­tive en­er­gy at a time of an­guish.

When Pan­day’s body was hand­ed over by the mil­i­tary to the fam­i­ly, it stopped five times for prayer on the way to the pyre, each time to rep­re­sent the five sens­es of the hu­man body.

But it was dur­ing the fi­nal cre­ma­tion rit­u­al, the burn­ing of the body, that some­thing sig­nif­i­cant hap­pened. It is tra­di­tion for that part of the cer­e­mo­ny to be done by a male rel­a­tive, some be­liev­ing that the soul on­ly achieves “mok­sha,” which is free­dom from the eter­nal cy­cle of life, death, and re­birth, when that rit­u­al is per­formed by a male.

How­ev­er, it has be­come a con­tentious po­si­tion of late, with some ar­gu­ing that if the de­ceased has no male sons, then their daugh­ters should be able to per­form that du­ty for their par­ents.

At the Shore of Peace, Pan­day’s daugh­ters took the lit torch­es, some cry­ing, some sto­ic and, con­ven­tion aside, they did their du­ty for their fa­ther.

A gun salute re­ver­ber­at­ed through the air, re­mind­ing peo­ple of the na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance of the hus­band and fa­ther.

As the pyre was com­plete­ly en­gulfed, ra­di­at­ing a heat that sig­nalled the time for many to leave, they walked away, leav­ing the fam­i­ly to grieve, while mourn­ing him in their own way.

Two men near­by were heard hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion about him, while they were head­ing to their ve­hi­cle.

“Bas go­ing to be like Cae­sar boy! Watch how even in death he will be more pow­er­ful,” one said to the oth­er.

“We just need a Mark An­tho­ny to step up now,” his com­pan­ion re­spond­ed.