Shane Su­perville

Se­nior re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Ti­tans of in­dus­try, pub­lic of­fi­cials, aca­d­e­mics and pro­fes­sion­als gath­ered at the Ara­malaya Pres­by­ter­ian Church, Tu­na­puna, on Sun­day to pay their fi­nal re­spects to busi­ness­woman He­len Bhag­wans­ingh, ma­tri­arch of the Bhag­wans­ingh’s Group of Com­pa­nies.

She died on Oc­to­ber 30 at the age of 83 af­ter ail­ing for some time.

She was the re­cip­i­ent of T&T’s high­est na­tion­al award, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T in 2011 for Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice.

Bhag­wans­ingh, and her late hus­band, Hu­bert Bhag­wans­ingh, es­tab­lished the Bhag­wans­ingh chain of hard­ware stores as one of the most suc­cess­ful lo­cal brands.

Hu­bert Bhag­wans­ingh died in 2019 at the age of 84.

Throngs of friends, fam­i­ly, col­leagues and busi­ness part­ners flocked to the Church to cel­e­brate the life of a woman many af­fec­tion­ate­ly re­ferred to as the ‘Queen B.’

As seat­ing in the church quick­ly filled up, tents were set up in the church yard to ac­com­mo­date late mourn­ers un­der the close watch of po­lice and pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.

Dur­ing her eu­lo­gy Bhag­wans­ingh’s grand­daugh­ter, Ar­i­ana Bhag­wans­ingh-Ra­goo, said amidst her pro­fes­sion­al ac­com­plish­ments, her grand­moth­er should al­so be re­mem­bered for her hu­mil­i­ty and gen­eros­i­ty.

She not­ed that while her grand­moth­er did not re­ceive a for­mal ed­u­ca­tion, it did not de­ter her from achiev­ing suc­cess.

“Her mot­to was al­ways ‘Trust your gut.’

“De­spite her achieve­ments, ma­ma re­mained hum­ble and when I say hum­ble I mean she would en­joy sa­da roti and fried aloo for break­fast.

“She was com­pas­sion­ate and had the abil­i­ty to con­nect with peo­ple of all walks of life.

“She main­tained an open-door pol­i­cy and made time to con­tribute to the well-be­ing of those with­in her sphere.

“She was like a moth­er to her staff. She loved them with a love that could burst through the ceil­ing.”

Re­fer­ring to Bhag­wans­ingh’s work through the He­len Bhag­wans­ingh Di­a­betes Ed­u­ca­tion­al, Re­search and Pre­ven­tion In­sti­tute, Bhag­wans­ingh-Ra­goo said out­side of her shrewd busi­ness acu­men, she was par­tic­u­lar­ly in­ter­est­ed in build­ing stronger com­mu­ni­ties through health­i­er lifestyles.

She not­ed her grand­moth­er was al­so par­tic­u­lar­ly ac­tive in mo­bil­is­ing food sup­port for Do­mini­ca and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines in the wake of Hur­ri­cane Maria and the erup­tion of La Soufriere vol­cano re­spec­tive­ly.

At home, Bhag­wans­ingh al­so com­mend­ed her grand­moth­er for her part­ner­ship with the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

The younger Bhag­wans­ingh fond­ly re­mem­bered her grand­moth­er as a hum­ble, giv­ing per­son who found the time to share her wis­dom with her grand­chil­dren.

“There is a say­ing that goes, ‘Un­easy rests the head which wears the crown’ and you have a crown on your head which is in­vis­i­ble and I know it weighs on you be­cause she told me many times, ‘That great suc­cess comes with a lot of stress and you have to have a strong back­bone to deal with it.’

“Ma­ma, that crown has been lift­ed from your head.

“You have float­ed up and you have gone home.

“You are with Pa­pa G, you are with your sib­lings and I pray that you watch over the eight of us with three great grand­chil­dren and all of the great grand that fol­low.”

Dur­ing his homi­ly, Rev­erend Daniel Teelucks­ingh said while deal­ing with the death of a loved one was dif­fi­cult, it was not the end of a per­son’s ex­is­tence.

He said while peo­ple may amass ma­te­r­i­al wealth and pos­ses­sions, the most valu­able thing they could work to­wards was do­ing good deeds.

“Shake­speare says the purest trea­sure mor­tal times af­ford is a spot­less rep­u­ta­tion.

“Not all the trea­sures we own in this life… the purest trea­sure we can own in this life is spot­less trea­sure.

“Are we work­ing to­wards that?

“There is some­thing to live for and some­thing for which to die and a won­der­ful lega­cy to leave to our sons and daugh­ters and their chil­dren’s chil­dren, a spot­less rep­u­ta­tion.”

Dur­ing a heart­felt ren­di­tion of Wind Be­neath my Wings, one of Bhag­wans­ingh’s close rel­a­tives could be heard sob­bing loud­ly from the front of the church and had to be con­soled by fam­i­ly.

When the ser­vice end­ed, mourn­ers ex­tend­ed their con­do­lences to the rel­a­tives be­fore Bhag­wans­ingh’s body was tak­en by a lux­u­ry Rose­wood clas­sic hearse to the Wa­ter­loo Cre­ma­tion Site.