RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

A week be­fore she would have cel­e­brat­ed her 23rd birth­day, Re­ane Nayan was buried along with her boyfriend An­dre Ross yes­ter­day.

Both of them per­ished in a car crash along the M2 Ring Road in Gol­con­da on Ju­ly 17.

The cou­ple had sep­a­rate fu­ner­als but both bod­ies were buried at the Mon­key Town Pub­lic ceme­tery.

Nayan’s fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing her twin sis­ter Leane, was in­con­solable as her body was tak­en in­to the church in a shiny cas­ket lined with pink satin. Pink had been Nayan’s favourite colour.

Kiss­ing her twin on the fore­head, Leane cried, “I al­ready bought your birth­day gift. I buy all the bal­loons. Now you gone and leave us. Look how the rain falling. You used to say lis­ten to the rain and you will sleep.”

De­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy, Leane said they did every­thing to­geth­er. As twins, they were al­ways com­pared to each oth­er but this nev­er af­fect­ed their love for one an­oth­er, she added.

De­scrib­ing Nayan as am­bi­tious, ex­tra­or­di­nary, de­ter­mined and ded­i­cat­ed, Leane said Nayan was a firm be­liev­er in in­ter-racial uni­ty.

“She loved her fam­i­ly deeply. A won­der­ful kind­heart­ed and gen­tle per­son. She stud­ied for a Bach­e­lor de­gree in Art and grad­u­at­ed with First Class Ho­n­ours. She at­tend­ed school her en­tire life and she was now start­ing to live and earn mon­ey of her own,” Leane said.

She re­vealed that Nayan al­ways ex­pect­ed ear­ly death.

She said Nayan did all that was ex­pect­ed of her and be­lieved firm­ly in “One Love.”

“She loved An­dre and he gave her all he had. She of­ten said there is no room for racism in this so­ci­ety. She said more at­ten­tion should be giv­en in the fight against racism,” Leane added.

The day be­fore she died, Nayan cooked lunch with her sis­ter and they laughed and talked. 

Leane al­so had words of con­so­la­tion for her par­ents.

“On the day of Re­ane’s death, we found her wear­ing dad­dy’s wed­ding ring on her left hand and mom­my’s wed­ding ring on her right hand. She wore it be­cause your union meant more to her. She al­ways want­ed you to know how hap­py she was that you ac­cept­ed her in­ter­ra­cial re­la­tion­ship. It meant the world to her that you nev­er treat­ed her less for lov­ing some­one out of her race,” Leane said.

Rev Clifton Mathu­ra, Pres­by­ter­ian Min­is­ter of the Di­a­mond Pas­toral Re­gion, said Nayan’s life was a bless­ing to oth­ers. He said mourn­ers must re­mem­ber the Cal­vary and the sac­ri­fice that Je­sus made to save peo­ple from their sins.

Sev­er­al of Nayan’s friends al­so of­fered words of com­fort. One friend said Ross made her hap­py.

“Re­ane was an ad­vo­cate for douglar­is­ing the na­tion. She left us with a hole in our heart but we must fill this hole with am­bi­tion, love, hu­mour and hap­pi­ness. Do not be­come numb to tragedy and loss of life, be­cause life is a bless­ing,” the friend said.

Chrishel Williams said Nayan made every­thing an ad­ven­ture and al­ways want­ed to make her fam­i­ly proud.

“Even meal­time was an ad­ven­ture. She had a way of cre­at­ing a lov­ing en­vi­ron­ment and she nev­er gave up on any­one,” Williams said.

Nayan and Ross had been to­geth­er for three years. 

They went to San Fer­nan­do to buy an alarm and were re­turn­ing to Nayan’s home around 10.30 am, when the Hon­da Civic in which they were trav­el­ling slammed in­to a Toy­ota For­tuner, dri­ven by Han­sraj Ra­jku­mar, 69, a re­tiree, of Mc Bean Vil­lage, Cou­va.

Po­lice said Ra­jku­mar was head­ing east along the M2 Ring Road, Gol­con­da, when, up­on reach­ing the NGC Boost­er Sta­tion, he col­lid­ed with a blue Civic dri­ven by Ross, who was head­ing in the op­po­site di­rec­tion.

Both Nayan and Ross died on the spot.