RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­o­raj Se­u­nar­ine, T&T's beloved ven­tril­o­quist and ma­gi­cian ex­tra­or­di­naire, fond­ly known as Dr Abra­cadabra, has passed at the age of 93.

Se­u­nar­ine en­thralled au­di­ences across the coun­try with his mas­ter­ful tricks. He had a par­tic­u­lar fond­ness for chil­dren and was known to have turned Patrick Man­ning's $20 in­to a $100. He al­so made Hol­ly Be­taudi­er lay an egg and en­ter­tained many promi­nent cit­i­zens in­clud­ing Sir Elis Clarke, Bhadase Sagan Ma­haraj, Bas­deo Pan­day, Sir Arthur Mc­Shine, Sun­dar Popo and Patrick Chookoolin­go among many oth­ers. 

He was born in Debe in 1929 and was an ex­cep­tion­al dho­lak and Saran­gi play­er. As a child, he was de­vot­ed to learn­ing Hin­di and en­joyed learn­ing bha­jans and pa­tri­ot­ic songs from his par­ents Se­u­nar­ine and Ram­daie. He lat­er be­came a teacher and then a prin­ci­pal. Awestruck by a ma­gi­cian named Cleopa­tra, Se­u­nar­ine be­gan learn­ing mag­ic tricks which he used to draw en­thu­si­asm from his young stu­dents. He adopt­ed the name Dr Abra­cadabra.

Apart from his mag­i­cal ac­claim, Se­u­nar­ine was known as one of the few peo­ple, flu­ent in Trinidad Bho­jpuri, Hin­di and Ur­du, some of the lan­guages brought to Trinidad by East In­di­an in­den­tured im­mi­grants. He al­so was con­ver­sa­tion­al in Ben­gali and Chi­nese.

Pas­sion­ate about his her­itage, Sieurnar­ine was de­ter­mined to pre­serve the Bho­jpuri lan­guage and had been work­ing with Dr Visham Bhimull and his Caribbean Hin­dus­tani group archiv­ing the di­alect of Caribbean Hin­dus­tani.

He rose to fame in the 1970s, '80s and '90s per­form­ing across the coun­try. He would go from school to school per­form­ing his acts, some­times for free, to ease the mo­not­o­ny of school life.

When­ev­er he heard of a child in need, Se­u­nar­ine would qui­et­ly come to their as­sis­tance, giv­ing from his pock­ets with no fan­fare and no pub­lic­i­ty.

Jok­ing­ly, he vowed nev­er to share his class acts which were con­tin­ued by his fam­i­ly af­ter he of­fi­cial­ly re­signed. He loved read­ing the Guardian news­pa­per and kept in touch with this re­porter over the years.

 Known for his wide smile and free tricks, Sie­u­nar­ine was en­gaged in many char­i­ty shows and nev­er hes­i­tat­ed to lend a help­ing hand to chil­dren in need. 

He would come to the Guardian's South Bu­reau on Chancery Lane and amuse staff with his tricks.

In 2003 he re­ceived a Na­tion­al Award- the Medal of Mer­it Sil­ver for Out­stand­ing and Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice. In 2010, he was among 13 peo­ple award­ed by the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion for their con­tri­bu­tion to the up­lift­ment of the city. In 2020, a bi­og­ra­phy of his life, writ­ten by Doolarchan Hanomans­ingh, was launched at the NCIC Na­gar Her­itage Li­brary. 

In 2019 he pub­lished a book ti­tled Abra­cadabra- Stage En­ter­tain­er and Ma­gi­cian Ex­tra­or­di­naire.

In an in­ter­view last night Dr Bhimul said: "My deep­est con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and friends. This is the loss of a great in­di­vid­ual, per­former and ed­u­ca­tor and men­tor."

He added, "It was quite a sur­prise. We knew each oth­er for a long time. He con­tributed to a lot of my re­search on Bho­jpuri ex­pres­sions and was al­ways a call away when I was try­ing to fig­ure out cer­tain things. I am deeply sad­dened. He was al­ways ac­tive­ly en­cour­ag­ing me to pub­lish a book in Trinidad Bho­jpuri gram­mar."

For­mer man­ag­er of the Guardian Hazel Ross-Per­ot said: "We are los­ing a gen­er­a­tion of en­ter­tain­ers. He was a great ma­gi­cian and great with chil­dren."

Pres­i­dent of the AS­JA Girls Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion Nadeira Khan said T&T had lost a beau­ti­ful soul.

"I am a child of the ’70s. One of the most mem­o­rable child­hood char­ac­ters for me was Dr Abra­cadabra. I was al­ways mes­mer­ized by his gift and tal­ent. Whether at schools, pub­lic fo­rums or birth­day par­ties, he was al­ways such a joy to be around, a bea­con of cre­ativ­i­ty, life, laugh­ter and the con­cept of il­lu­sion was al­ways as­tound­ing," she re­called.