RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Sto­ries of peo­ple who over­came pover­ty and hard­ship to achieve suc­cess and up­lift their com­mu­ni­ty have in­spired two au­thors to doc­u­ment a cen­tu­ry of his­to­ry along Pe­nal Rock Road, in­clud­ing dancer Dr Ra­jku­mar Kr­ish­na Per­sad, who once slept home­less in the Pe­nal Mar­ket be­fore go­ing on to per­form for Queen Eliz­a­beth II.

Per­sad’s sto­ry is among those fea­tured in Echoes of Pe­nal Rock Road: A Cen­tu­ry of Her­itage, a book writ­ten by Neela Seer­at­tans­ingh and Dool Hanoomans­ingh, with the sup­port of Seer­at­tans­ingh’s fa­ther, Deo Seer­at­tans­ingh, whose love for the com­mu­ni­ty sparked the project.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Neela Seer­at­tans­ingh said she was moved to tears while re­search­ing the lives of peo­ple who start­ed with lit­tle but went on to make sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to their com­mu­ni­ty and Trinidad and To­ba­go.

She said Per­sad, who es­caped abuse at the hands of his step­fa­ther, ex­pe­ri­enced home­less­ness and de­pend­ed on the kind­ness of oth­ers be­fore es­tab­lish­ing him­self as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ac­claimed In­di­an dancers.

He was the first T&T stu­dent to be award­ed a schol­ar­ship by the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia, through the In­di­an Coun­cil for Cul­tur­al Re­la­tions, to study mu­sic and dance. Af­ter study­ing the clas­si­cal style of south­ern In­dia known as Bhara­ta Natyam, he re­turned to Trinidad in 1967 and es­tab­lished the Trinidad School of In­di­an Dance.

He lat­er per­formed for Queen Eliz­a­beth II and re­ceived an hon­orary Doc­tor of Let­ters de­gree from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in 2016.

“His ear­ly life was marked by tremen­dous hard­ship,” Seer­at­tans­ingh said, de­scrib­ing his jour­ney as a re­minder that dif­fi­cult be­gin­nings did not have to de­ter­mine a per­son’s fu­ture.

“I had heard about the suc­cess­es of many fam­i­lies over the years, but learn­ing about their be­gin­nings gave me a much deep­er ap­pre­ci­a­tion of their achieve­ments.”

From hum­ble be­gin­nings

She said the book traces Pe­nal Rock Road’s de­vel­op­ment from a com­mu­ni­ty where many fam­i­lies de­pend­ed on agri­cul­ture to one that has pro­duced promi­nent fig­ures in busi­ness, ed­u­ca­tion, re­li­gion and the arts.

Seer­at­tans­ingh said the idea came from con­ver­sa­tions with her fa­ther, who had lived in the com­mu­ni­ty all his life and wit­nessed its trans­for­ma­tion.

Her grand­par­ents were first-gen­er­a­tion de­scen­dants of In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers. Her grand­fa­ther, Padarath Seer­at­tan Singh, worked at the flood­gate in Wood­land, while her grand­moth­er, Ra­j­pa­tia Seer­at­tans­ingh, cul­ti­vat­ed a gar­den, reared an­i­mals and sold pro­duce at the mar­ket to sup­port their large fam­i­ly.

Seer­at­tans­ingh said the chil­dren helped with the an­i­mals and gar­dens be­fore and af­ter school and of­ten walked to school bare­foot.

“Ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties were lim­it­ed, and many fam­i­lies re­lied on what they could grow or pro­duce them­selves,” she said.

Seer­at­tans­ingh said the com­mu­ni­ty was once made up of dirt tracks and fam­i­lies who looked out for one an­oth­er.

The book, she said, records the con­tri­bu­tions of res­i­dents who helped shape the vil­lage, in­clud­ing Robert Chadee, who do­nat­ed acres of land in 1904 for a pri­ma­ry school, church and recre­ation­al ground.

Al­so doc­u­ment­ed is res­i­dent Kubair Singh, who sup­port­ed ed­u­ca­tion by al­low­ing class­es for the Pe­nal Rock Road Hin­du School to be held ini­tial­ly in his home. He lat­er gave land for the con­struc­tion of the Kubairs­ingh Pe­nal Rock Hin­du School.

Among the oth­er peo­ple and fam­i­lies fea­tured are the Tilluck­d­har­rys, Dowlaths, Rev­erend Ralph Um­raw, De­vanand Ba­hal of the In­dosaf Group of Com­pa­nies, Patrick Ma­habir of the Patrick Ma­habir Group of Com­pa­nies, the Sook­lal fam­i­ly, which is promi­nent in drag rac­ing, and singer Shakun­ta­la Jang­ba­hadoor.

The book al­so ex­am­ines the lives of for­mer in­den­tured labour­ers who worked on sug­ar cane and co­coa es­tates and lat­er es­tab­lished fam­i­lies and liveli­hoods in Trinidad.

Seer­at­tans­ingh said the in­ten­tion was to show how their sac­ri­fices helped cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

“My fa­ther wit­nessed a time when the vil­lage func­tioned as an ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly, roads were lit­tle more than dirt tracks, and agri­cul­ture sus­tained most house­holds,” she said.

“From those hum­ble be­gin­nings, Pe­nal Rock Road de­vel­oped in­to the vi­brant com­mu­ni­ty we know to­day, large­ly through the ded­i­ca­tion, gen­eros­i­ty and per­se­ver­ance of its pi­o­neer­ing res­i­dents.”

Pre­serv­ing a cen­tu­ry of mem­o­ries

The re­search and writ­ing took about two years. Seer­at­tans­ingh’s fa­ther and Hanoomans­ingh con­duct­ed more than 75 in­ter­views, col­lect­ing per­son­al ac­counts, pho­tographs and his­tor­i­cal in­for­ma­tion. Seer­at­tans­ingh joined the project dur­ing its fi­nal nine months, help­ing to write and com­pile the sto­ries.

One of the chal­lenges was the lack of for­mal records doc­u­ment­ing some events, which meant the au­thors had to de­pend on the rec­ol­lec­tions of res­i­dents and fam­i­lies.

The book al­so records tra­di­tion­al prac­tices that helped fam­i­lies sur­vive, in­clud­ing grow­ing veg­eta­bles and rice, pro­duc­ing co­conut oil and ghee, rear­ing an­i­mals and us­ing med­i­c­i­nal herbs and home reme­dies.

Seer­at­tans­ingh said the com­mu­ni­ty faced dif­fi­cult con­di­tions over the years, in­clud­ing re­cur­ring flood­ing, poor in­fra­struc­ture and pe­ri­ods with­out elec­tric­i­ty or re­li­able run­ning wa­ter.

De­spite these chal­lenges, res­i­dents con­tin­ued to sup­port one an­oth­er, a tra­di­tion she be­lieves re­mains part of the com­mu­ni­ty’s iden­ti­ty.

A lega­cy of ser­vice

Her fa­ther’s own con­tri­bu­tion to Pe­nal Rock Road is al­so doc­u­ment­ed through his in­volve­ment in cul­tur­al and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions.

In 1977, he helped es­tab­lish the Pe­nal Rock Road Hin­du Youths Or­ga­ni­za­tion, which or­gan­ised the first Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion at the Pe­nal Rock Road Recre­ation Ground. The fol­low­ing year, it held the first Phag­wa cel­e­bra­tion at the Trin­toc Ground in Clarke Road, Pe­nal. The event con­tin­ued for 16 years be­fore be­ing hand­ed over to the Ma­ha Sab­ha.

In 2025, he found­ed Hands for Hu­man­i­ty, a reg­is­tered non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion with the mot­to “In­spire, Mo­ti­vate and Up­lift”.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion has since car­ried out health ini­tia­tives, back-to-school dri­ves, food ham­per dis­tri­b­u­tions, Christ­mas ac­tiv­i­ties and cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions. It has al­so recog­nised more than 70 peo­ple for their con­tri­bu­tions in var­i­ous fields.

Seer­at­tans­ingh said her fa­ther’s com­mit­ment to ser­vice was one of the qual­i­ties she ad­mired most.

His phi­los­o­phy is, “Ser­vice to man is ser­vice to God.”

“He has a deep love for Pe­nal Rock Road and a re­mark­able sense of hu­mil­i­ty. De­spite the many con­tri­bu­tions he has made, he rarely seeks recog­ni­tion or takes cred­it for his work,” she said.

The au­thors hope the book will en­cour­age young peo­ple to learn more about their an­ces­tors and ap­pre­ci­ate the sac­ri­fices that helped cre­ate the op­por­tu­ni­ties avail­able to them to­day.

They al­so hope it will en­cour­age oth­er com­mu­ni­ties to record their his­to­ries be­fore pho­tographs, per­son­al ac­counts and mem­o­ries are lost.