Tableland mourns

TIME stood still for several hours in Tableland, Princes Town yesterday as residents lined the streets to bid farewell to five village sons who were killed in a car accident over the weekend.

While hundreds of mourners gathered at the homes of the dead men on Glod Road for the last rites, hundreds more stood in the street and looked on from their homes and workplaces to pay their last respects as the hearses passed by.

And even the sky seemed to weep, as it rained heavily even as smoke from the five pyres at the Mosquito Creek cremation site billowed toward the clouds.

Lutchman Ramdass, 25, his brother, Rohan, 22, their cousin, Regan Pulchan, 19, and friends Pooran Bissoo, 22, and Navin Sieusanker, 18, died on Saturday night. Lutchman, the driver of the car, was turning a corner on Naparima Mayaro Road when he crashed into a four-tonne truck near the 19 1/2 mile mark at Fonrose Village, Poole.

The five grew up together and relatives felt it was fitting that they left the earth together.

The message from their untimely deaths, neighbour Reshma Dass told mourners in her eulogy, was that drinking alcohol and driving were a deadly mix. The young men were liming before they went to a graduation ball at Tableland High School.

Dass called on parents to teach their children to live their lives for the upliftment of themselves and others.

“Parents, you all play a big part in your children’s lives. Teach them that they must live for their betterment and not otherwise,” she said. The final rites were performed on the five bodies at their homes before they were placed together upon a hill overlooking the village.

Relatives wailed and villagers stood in disbelief as they recalled the tragedy which claimed their lives.

Rohan Mahase, 24, who is wheelchair bound, was distraught as he looked at the five caskets. Mahase, who became paralysed two years ago after diving into the Caura river, said his friends were like his brothers. “They took care of me when I got in my accident,” he said. “They bathe me, talk to me and took me everywhere I wanted to go. But the tears can’t fall from my eyes now.”

Dass said all five were hard-working, ambitious, respectable and “looked out for each other’s backs.”

She said Pulchan was known for his “awesome smile” and his heart which was “big as a lion.”

Lutchman, she said, had many struggles in his life but was always patient and responsible.

Sieusanker adamantly pursued his academic studies and proved himself to be an independent person. Bissoo was remembered as a young husband who was “considerate and loving and possessed a calm spirit.”

Rohan was free-spirited, kind and worked hard to provide for his family.

“These five young men all shared a similar lifestyle.

“However, they will be remembered by one thing in common, for the love in their hearts and the love they showed to us in their short journeys in life,” Dass said fondly.