SAN­DRA L BLOOD

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When pas­sion­ate writer and po­et Dilip Ja­goo cel­e­brat­ed his fa­ther Bas­ant’s 95th birth­day at home on Feb­ru­ary 11, sur­round­ed by loved ones, the mo­ment struck a deep­er chord.

“It be­came clear­er that it is im­per­a­tive to cher­ish and ho­n­our your fa­ther, fam­i­ly, his­to­ry, lega­cy, and be a good fa­ther,” Ja­goo re­flect­ed. “Teach chil­dren to do the same, and con­tin­ue adding val­ue to lega­cy.”

For Ja­goo, this cel­e­bra­tion wasn’t just about mark­ing an­oth­er year. It was a re­minder of the sac­ri­fices, love, and strength passed down through gen­er­a­tions. 

“My fa­ther loved his chil­dren and worked hard. On his birth­day, he didn’t want much; he was just hap­py. We missed Mom while chat­ting about the good old days,” he said.

Bas­ant, once a flute and mouth or­gan play­er, is al­so re­mem­bered for his pas­sion for pho­tog­ra­phy. He still trea­sures his Ko­dak pin­hole cam­era and a colo­nial coin col­lec­tion—sym­bols of a life lived ful­ly and sim­ply.

Ja­goo, a 2019 re­tiree from Nalis, a recre­ation­al crick­eter and a fa­ther him­self, takes his role se­ri­ous­ly. 

Mar­ried to Guyanese-born Am­ri­ta, his busi­ness part­ner and pro­pri­etor of the fam­i­ly’s roti es­tab­lish­ment, he is the proud dad of Shani, an ac­coun­tant; Sohni, a UWI Man­age­ment stu­dent; and pet dog Nala.

Though he has daugh­ters, Ja­goo un­der­stands his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ex­tends be­yond the home.

“I still have to be an ex­em­plar to help them iden­ti­fy good char­ac­ter in males,” he said, adding that he al­so has many nephews who look up to him.

Lega­cy, for Ja­goo, is not on­ly per­son­al—it is his­tor­i­cal. 

In­di­an Ar­rival Day holds deep sig­nif­i­cance, con­nect­ing him to his great-grand­fa­ther, Ja­goo Ram­ta­hal (or Ram­tul), whose life con­tin­ues to in­spire.

Ac­cord­ing to an El So­cor­ro im­mi­gra­tion doc­u­ment dat­ed De­cem­ber 1, 1879, his great-grand­fa­ther—list­ed as No 39079—ar­rived in the colony on No­vem­ber 26, 1870, aboard the Wilshire. 

He com­plet­ed his in­dus­tri­al res­i­dence, set­tled along Lit­tle Cau­ra Road in Cu­nar­ipo, ac­quired land, and mar­ried Bal­casi­ah Sankar on Feb­ru­ary 17, 1909. To­geth­er, they had 11 chil­dren, whose de­scen­dants would lat­er branch in­to fam­i­lies across San Raphael, Cu­nar­ipo, Coryal, Carmichael Vil­lage, Caratal, and Guaico.

While the mar­riage doc­u­ment list­ed his name as Ja­goo Ram­ta­hal, a vis­it­ing In­di­an na­tion­al lat­er in­ter­pret­ed his sig­na­ture as Ja­goo Ram­tul. 

“It’s the in­ter­preter’s opin­ion that my great-grand­fa­ther was a Pun­jabi, hav­ing de­rived this from the pat­tern of his sig­na­ture,” Ja­goo said. The sur­name it­self ap­pears in var­i­ous forms among fam­i­ly mem­bers—Jah­goo, Jaghoo, and Ja­goo.

Sad­ly, no known pho­tographs of his great-grand­fa­ther ex­ist, and the graves of both great-grand­par­ents at the Cu­nar­ipo Ceme­tery re­main uniden­ti­fi­able.

Ja­goo al­so proud­ly re­called his grand­fa­ther, Ghamoo Gan­ga Ja­goo (1888–1955)—a teacher and es­tate own­er who cul­ti­vat­ed co­coa, cof­fee, and cit­rus on lands he ac­quired in Mar­tin Road, Tamana. 

Ghamoo mar­ried Sur­swa­tee Gan­ness, daugh­ter of Dhan­soop of Las Lo­mas. They had nine chil­dren, in­clud­ing Bas­ant.

“My grand­fa­ther played har­mon­i­ca, beat drums, dressed im­pec­ca­bly, owned a 1953-mod­el Austin A40 Cam­bridge and Chevro­let Fleet­mas­ter 1948 car, and had a large but mod­est home on Mar­tin Road, Tamana, which was built dur­ing a time when there was no elec­tric­i­ty, and oil lamps and the es­tate’s riv­er wa­ter were used,” said Ja­goo.

To­day, he owns part of his grand­fa­ther’s es­tate and plans to re­store and cul­ti­vate it as it once was. He al­so dreams of writ­ing a nov­el root­ed in his life ex­pe­ri­ences—an­oth­er way to pre­serve and pass down the Ja­goo lega­cy.

“I ex­tend Hap­py Fa­ther’s Day to all fa­thers and in­tend to con­tin­ue cher­ish­ing mine, re­spect­ing my an­ces­tors, be­ing a good fa­ther, and strength­en­ing/en­rich­ing the Ja­goo lega­cy and spe­cial mo­ments,” he said.