Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Tears, cheers and love flowed for late for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day from mem­bers of the pub­lic, as they stood out­side the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) in San Fer­nan­do, where his state fu­ner­al was held yes­ter­day.

Even those a bit dis­ap­point­ed that they were not al­lowed to en­ter the SAPA com­pound were still pleased with the grand show of ad­mi­ra­tion and re­spect for the “Sil­ver Fox,” since his pass­ing in Flori­da on Jan­u­ary 1.

Fol­low­ing a pri­vate cer­e­mo­ny at his Bryan Gate home in Phillip­ine, San Fer­nan­do, the hearse ar­rived at the cor­ner of Cipero Street and Rien­zi Kir­ton High­way for the mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion at 8.30 am. Scores of peo­ple, in­clud­ing work­ers at near­by busi­ness­es, looked on, most with their cell­phone cam­eras up­held, as the pro­ces­sion be­gan with the flag-draped cof­fin on a car­riage.

With the pro­ces­sion mov­ing to Frank Sina­tra’s My Way as it turned on­to Todd Street to­wards the en­trance of SAPA, stu­dents of Win­der­mere Pri­vate School ex­cit­ed­ly waved flags with his im­age. While fam­i­ly mem­bers, dig­ni­taries and close friends were in­side SAPA, on­ly peo­ple who re­ceived in­vi­ta­tions were al­lowed un­der a tent where they viewed the ser­vice via a large screen.

At Skin­ner Park, with a seat­ing ca­pac­i­ty of 3,000, two screens were al­so set up for view­ing, but there were less than 100 peo­ple. One woman told Guardian Me­dia that she was sat­is­fied with the size of the screens and the au­dio, but she sug­gest­ed many peo­ple may have been un­aware of the view­ing arrange­ment.

Pan­day’s pow­er­ful and long-last­ing im­pact on peo­ple of all walks of life was ev­i­dent, as every per­son Guardian Me­dia in­ter­viewed spoke about him in glow­ing terms.

Den­nis Mo­hammed, 62, of Princes Town, de­cid­ed to ho­n­our Pan­day, whom he re­mem­bered as a free­dom fight­er, by walk­ing from his home­town to SAPA.

Look­ing ex­haust­ed af­ter his long walk in the sun, Mo­hammed said, “When I reach here they say I have to get an in­vi­ta­tion. I say he was a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the poor.”

Dis­ap­point­ed that she could not en­ter SAPA, 72-year-old Es­ther Jack said she had been a loy­al sup­port­er of Pan­day since he was prime min­is­ter. She was de­ter­mined, how­ev­er, that she would stay un­til the hearse de­part­ed from SAPA. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, she col­lapsed af­ter com­plain­ing of stom­ach pains and was as­sist­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers, who stayed with her un­til the am­bu­lance took her to the hos­pi­tal.

Show­ing his ap­pre­ci­a­tion to Pan­day, re­gard­ed as a peo­ple per­son and po­lit­i­cal gi­ant, cul­tur­al ac­tivist Ju­nior Bis­nath craft­ed a spe­cial trib­ute for Pan­day with a ban­ner bear­ing his pho­tos for peo­ple to sign.

Ac­com­pa­nied by three moko jumbies, Bis­nath said, “We could not let an oc­ca­sion like this pass with­out do­ing some­thing for Mr Pan­day. He has done so much good for this coun­try as a prime min­is­ter, just like every oth­er prime min­is­ter.”

Re­flect­ing on his mem­o­ries of Pan­day, Raul Hen­ry, a sup­port­er, be­came emo­tion­al.

De­scrib­ing him as a hero, Hen­ry lament­ed, “He was a very beau­ti­ful per­son in­side and out­side, pri­vate­ly and open­ly he was the same per­son.”

An­tic­i­pat­ing the long wait and hot sun, cos­tume de­sign­er Win­ston Black and his friends from Ari­ma were pre­pared with their chairs and cool­er. Ac­com­pa­ny­ing the cortege as it de­part­ed the com­pound at 11.55 am, the mu­sic truck played Mari­ah Carey’s Hero, Broth­er Mar­vin’s Ja­ha­ji Bhai and Bette Mi­dler’s Wind Be­neath My Wings.

Dis­play­ing their last show of love for Pan­day, those gath­ered waved flags and cheered as the hearse drove past, en route to the Shore of the Peace at Mos­qui­to Creek, South Oropouche, for the fi­nal rit­u­al un­der Hin­du rites.