Seebaran, the ‘Baron of Jumbie Peace’

Leo was socialised and moulded from birth by the centripetal forces of the growing confluence of port and plantation, road and railway, agricultural and industrial, the douglarisation of Indian/African and rural secondary Naparima College reinforced by urban-centric QRC.

He was born in famous and notorious Caroni Village. Within a radius of 20 metres from his birthplace were the residences of the late Wilfred D Best, well known author of the Students Companion, the late Bhadase Sagan Maraj, Pundit Krishna, business magnate and icon Ayoub Mohammed, current ENT specialist Dr Esau Mohammed, current MP for Couva North Rudy Indarsingh, and Justice Lennox Deyalsingh.

Also located in this birth zone were the Caroni Railway Station, the village post office, the only route from Port-of Spain to San Fernando, the Southern Main Road and the Trinidad Government Railway station, as well as the Caroni Police Station and Caroni Canadian Mission School, to say nothing of the thriving Caroni River plastering sand business that generated enormous wealth to the villagers until the mid-1950s.

Those were the pristine glorious days when the village brought up and assumed responsibility for the growth of the child, especially this child called Leo who symbolised, synchronised and crystallised the close harmonious relations conducted by the two main ethnic groups of Caroni Village — a mixed nodal, railway-driven community and transportation hub for both sugar and oil.

Leo was a devoted PNM aficionado and faithful chela (follower) of the late former prime minister Dr Eric Williams beginning in 1956.

He maintained his deep communal roots and links in Caroni till his demise. He was the catalyst for many decades behind the successful functioning of the village council and community centre that were officially initiated by Williams, whom Leo brought to Caroni for the second time — the first being in 1956 when the Doc held 15- minute railway station spot political meetings from Port-of-Spain to Siparia.

The Caroni of Leo Seebaran was equally industrial, transportational and agricultural with the Caroni rum distillery, sugar factory and four sugar estates providing the employment attractions for, inter alia, skilled personnel drawn from the port of which the parents of Wilfred D Best were prime examples.

Leo was a community activist who bridged the growing political divide between the races in Caroni post-1962. He assisted many Caroni families to break out from the stranglehold of sugar and rice and to gain education and lucrative employment in urban/suburban entities.

He did not deprive Caroni of the necessary indigenous community leadership qualities by relocating elsewhere as his contemporaries would have done in their legitimate quest to achieve social and economic mobility.

I had proposed that the new Washington Roundabout of the modernised Southern Main Road just opposite his former residence be named the Seebaran Roundabout as a fitting tribute to this devoted exemplar from Caroni.

He volunteered to serve as village scribe, mentor and pro bono adviser on education and career paths development to the growing young literate population descendants of the indentures who lived in the Caroni barracks.

STEPHEN KANGAL Caroni