Devanand Mandeo... man of many talents

It is Saturday, and Devanand Mandeo, 30, of Lothians village, Princes Town, wakes up at 6 am to mobilise the boys of his area for a game of cricket. After spending six hours on the playfield, he is off to teach Maths and English to students in standard three. After this he is hustling home to get dressed to go out with the Ramayan Group — the Saraswatie Kirtan Mandalli, where he is the chief drummer. On his return home late at night (12.30 am) he is looking for his minutes book to go through some notes for a meeting on Sunday evening. Yet he smiles through it all and the people who benefit from his knowledge never know what exactly he has gone through when the day is done.

The handsome Mandeo may be short in stature, but he stands tall among the young men in his age bracket. He has been able to accomplish so much more than many people may try to do in an entire lifetime. As a teacher of the Robert Village Hindu School, he assists in tutoring scores of children in music and vocals for the annual Baal Vikaas competition. This means staying after school on many days to carry on practice sessions. At home he is the president of the Lothians Road Sports Club and the leader of the popular Caribel Fun Lovers Tassa Group. He is admired both for being one of the most dedicated teachers at school and one of the most skilful tassa drummer in TT. Young people who are interested in drumming, academics and sports always surround him. He spends most of his spare time giving free lessons in any of these subjects. Hustling from one project to a next, he tries to keep up with everything that is a happening around him and more so with his own agenda. He took time off his hectic schedule to talk to People about his success as a musician and a teacher.

“Ever since I knew myself I loved tassa drumming and music. Therefore it was the genuine love for the art that really made me excel,” he said. Talking about why he is involved in so many cultural projects, he said, “There are a lot of people who talk about seeing change in a village or in a school, but talk is cheap and I realise that those who talk about these things really want people to know that they have a brilliant plan. But they are unwilling to put out the effort to implement this plan.” He noted that often he would come across villagers who would have brilliant plans to change society, but whenever there is a protest or meeting you don’t see these people for one reason or another. He said that the village of Lothians now has a small population of 3,000, and there are many social and economic problems that the villagers face every day, but they will not join together to protest or to unite the people in any way. “Therefore their ideas are short lived. I believe that people are not as genuine as they used to be. Long ago the people would come together and work as a unit. Today they are so busy living life that they forget that in unity they can live a better life,” he noted, speaking like a true leader. Mandeo started beating tassa drums 15 years ago with his grandfather, Ustad Suchit. As a young boy he used to accompany his grandfather to weddings and other social events beating drums. Later on he studied tabla playing with the renowned teacher Dexter Ragoonanan. Today Mandeo has mastered all the tassa, the dholak and the tabla rhythm instruments. As a drummer, he is very much in demand for many of the big shows in the country.

Apart from everything that he has to do he still finds the time to tutor the younger boys who are interested in tassa drumming. “While there are many young men who are interested in tassa, few will stick with this art,” he said. He noted that tassa drumming is tiring because the drums are heavy and one must put in a lot of energy to ring out the right notes from the drums. Recently he spent ten days at the Cedar Hill Ramleela, providing four hours of non-stop tassa drumming on a daily basis for the characters of that drama. While the thousands who came to see Ramleela admired the characters of Rama and Lakshmana, few would notice the guy behind the tassa drums. Yet he is the one who gave them the rhythm to work with. He was the one person who coordinated the heavy drumming at this event. At age 30 he is still single. Why? “Well, I don’t think any woman will tolerate the kind of life I live,” he answered smilingly. He noted that his future is already written out and if someone came his way he would tie the sacred knot.