RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

The fu­ner­al for the late Dil-e-Nadan bassist, gui­tarist and singer, Ren­nie Ram­nar­ine, will be held to­mor­row.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ren­nie’s broth­er, Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine, said a pri­vate ser­vice will be held at Dass Fu­ner­al Home in San Fer­nan­do from 7 am. He said from 9 am to 11 am, the body will be at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts ( SAPA) for view­ing.

“We want to leave by 11 am to head down to Mos­qui­to Creek for cre­ma­tion,” Ray­mond said.

Days be­fore his pass­ing, Ren­nie com­mem­o­rat­ed 62 years of Dil-e-Nadan and thanked every­one who kept sup­port­ing and be­liev­ing in their mu­sic.

Ren­nie al­so ac­knowl­edged that it marked four years since he had been on dial­y­sis.

Ren­nie, who was di­ag­nosed with end stage re­nal fail­ure, passed away peace­ful­ly on Mon­day morn­ing.

Hours af­ter his pass­ing, a video was re­leased on so­cial me­dia by a rel­a­tive. The video was a pre­vi­ous record­ing of him send­ing a strong mes­sage to artistes in the mu­sic/chut­ney in­dus­try to unite for the bet­ter­ment of the in­dus­try.

He said, “Some­thing very im­por­tant to me. I have been in the mu­sic in­dus­try since I was 12 years old and I have seen so much of pulling, tug­ging and back­stab­bing. I want to tell the artistes out there, how do you all ex­pect an in­di­vid­ual to move for­ward? To ex­pect the mu­sic in­dus­try to move for­ward like this? We have to come to­geth­er, band to­geth­er for the bet­ter­ment of the cul­ture as a whole.”

He added, “Gen­er­al­ly, there is so much we go through in life and it comes down to this, that noth­ing in life doesn’t mat­ter any­more. Live good with peo­ple and make great mem­o­ries. Peo­ple talk about your ac­tions, char­ac­ter and what you do. So, the next thing is a lot of peo­ple live by guess.”

Ram­nar­ine said in or­der for the mu­sic to reach an­oth­er lev­el, artistes need to “for­get the jeal­ousy and en­vy.”

“A man can­not do more than he can do. What sense is there in try­ing to fight down each oth­er? Pro­duce good mu­sic. The hap­pi­est mo­ments in my life were not re­ceiv­ing a pay­cheque be­cause of my mu­sic but know­ing the im­pact on peo­ple’s lives. So, let us come to­geth­er and make a big­ger im­pact on in­dus­try and on peo­ple’s lives,” he said.

Ram­nar­ine, who was on a hos­pi­tal bed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal at the time of the mak­ing of the video, al­so urged lis­ten­ers/view­ers not to take their par­ents for grant­ed.

He shared his own ex­pe­ri­ence, say­ing:” Every morn­ing I wake up and when my eyes open, I wake up with a smile. I thank God for an­oth­er day be­cause thou­sands of peo­ple around the world went to sleep and didn’t wake up. A lot of peo­ple take their par­ents for grant­ed and if you sit and re­al­ly think about what a moth­er had to go through car­ry­ing you for nine months and a fa­ther work­ing, sweat­ing night and day to mind you.

“What I don’t see is peo­ple lov­ing their par­ents or giv­ing that kind of cred­it where it is re­al­ly due. You could have a thou­sand wives but on­ly one moth­er.”

“My mom, I re­al­ly don’t know how to de­scribe her. My dad passed away but he made a good life for us. I see that kind of en­er­gy that my moth­er puts to­wards me in tak­ing care of me as though I am a lit­tle ba­by. I do say to God what I can re­al­ly do, how can I ex­plain it to my mum for her to re­al­ly un­der­stand how I feel about her,” he added as he broke down in tears.