SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

& AM­BI­KA JA­GAS­SARS­INGH

For months af­ter LM­CS div­er Rishi Na­gas­sar died in an in­dus­tri­al ac­ci­dent at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, his son Nash­hik, who was three-years-old at the time, would keep dai­ly vig­ils at the gate to the fam­i­ly’s home wait­ing for his fa­ther to re­turn from work.

The tod­dler’s wait usu­al­ly end­ed in tears as he could not un­der­stand why his fa­ther nev­er re­turned. He would cry for hours and on­ly calmed down when his old­er broth­er, Nicholai, al­lowed him to fall asleep on his chest like Na­gas­sar used to do. How­ev­er, Nash­hik would jump awake late at night, scream­ing for his fa­ther.

Na­gas­sar, fond­ly known as Ryan, died along with his LM­CS col­leagues Kaz­im Ali Ju­nior, Yusuf Hen­ry and Fyzal Kur­ban, af­ter they were sucked in­to a 30-inch pipeline at Paria’s Berth 6 last Feb­ru­ary 25. At the time, they were con­duct­ing un­der­wa­ter main­te­nance on the line.

In an in­ter­view at her Cou­va home ahead of the first an­niver­sary of the tragedy, Na­gas­sar’s com­mon-law wife, Vanes­sa Kussie wept as she re­called the pain and heart­break she felt as she tried to con­sole Nash­hik while strug­gling to process her own grief.

“From the time he wake up and he ain’t see his fa­ther he will start to make noise and scream and wake and cry un­til morn­ing. That was our strug­gle for months,” she said.

Kussie said as she tried to ex­plain the con­cept of death to Nash­hik, he found a way to cope.

“He start­ed call­ing me Aun­tie Vene. He start­ed build­ing love and af­fec­tion for my sis­ter be­cause she start­ed pack­ing his bag and her hus­band, Anes­sa and Inky would take Nash­hik for months to sleep over by them be­cause he didn’t want to stay home. He start­ed call­ing my sis­ter mom­my, he calls my broth­er-in-law dad­dy,” she said.

Kussie al­so no­ticed changes in the be­hav­iour of her old­er sons, Nicholai and Nigel.

“When you talk to Nigel, Nigel would shake his head or nod. He stop eat­ing, he wasn’t even eat­ing. He was al­ways go­ing to meet one of his friends. Prob­a­bly when he go by his friend he eat, I don’t know.

“My sis­ter used to talk to him, pet him up, ba­by him to eat. He would go by she and eat, when he come home he would go straight in his room and stay,” she re­called.

Nicholai be­came like her shad­ow, stay­ing at her side, try­ing to take care of her even as he griev­ed the loss of the on­ly fa­ther he had ever known.

Al­though Na­gas­sar was not their bi­o­log­i­cal fa­ther, Kussie said his bond with Nicholai and Nigel was un­break­able, as he of­ten went out of his way to en­sure they were hap­py and com­fort­able.

“He al­ways say, ‘Leave the chil­dren alone, leave them, don’t tell them do any­thing.’ When he come home he’ll do it, so they grow up that way, they grow up do­ing noth­ing. If we bar­be­cu­ing or what­ev­er they would be around him, you know. He will tell them come drink some­thing, come lime. We would al­ways sit down and eat to­geth­er,” she said.

She added: “Some­times I wish this was a dream. I ask God every day and I tell him I wish I could live in a gal­va­nized house if they could just bring him back, take away every­thing from me, take away every­thing, just for Nash­hik to see his fa­ther.”

Kussie ad­mit­ted she is still strug­gling to deal with Na­gas­sar’s death. She man­aged to smile through her tears as she re­called their hap­pi­er days to­geth­er, in­clud­ing the last Valen­tine’s Day they spent to­geth­er when Na­gas­sar show­ered her with choco­lates and ros­es.

Kussie said when she saw the num­ber of gifts Na­gas­sar brought home, she thought some were for oth­er rel­a­tives.

“I say why you buy­ing all these things for? He say, ‘Girl, I buy­ing choco­late for you so you would have choco­late for the whole year, I don’t know when I buy­ing choco­late for you again.’ And now, when I look back…there is still one heart choco­late in my fridge. Just how he give me, I don’t know how to open that choco­late, every time I take it out, I put it back,” she re­called.

A short while lat­er, she re­moved a sealed box of choco­lates from her re­frig­er­a­tor and showed it off with a smile, even as the tears flowed.

She said Na­gas­sar was a lov­ing and car­ing per­son who took time to al­ways show­er those clos­est to him with af­fec­tion.

Kussie has found a way to cope with her be­reave­ment: “I would take his phone and call my phone just to see “Hun”, I would take my phone and call back his phone just to see the phone ring­ing, to hear the ring tone.”

The fam­i­ly has been strug­gling fi­nan­cial­ly since Na­gas­sar’s death and held a bar­beque fundrais­er to pay their bills.

“You can’t go and tell peo­ple at the gro­cery or at T&TEC or WASA that I’m the wife of one of the divers and they will pay your bill. No, you can­not go to them, your gro­ceries will not be paid that way,” she said.

Kussie, who is ap­peal­ing for the au­thor­i­ties to do bet­ter for all the divers’ fam­i­lies in­volved, said she is ea­ger­ly await­ing the re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry that in­ves­ti­gat­ed the ac­ci­dent.

She is con­fi­dent that Com­mis­sion chair­man, Queen’s Coun­sel Jerome Lynch will be fair to the fam­i­lies and the lone sur­vivor.

“I hope jus­tice is served for all, that’s all we pray for. Jus­tice and who­ev­er is re­spon­si­ble, I hope that some­thing hap­pens. Some­thing has to hap­pen be­cause this has been hap­pen­ing for so much years and noth­ing has been done about it and they prob­a­bly thought this same thing was go­ing to hap­pen. I don’t know how peo­ple in Paria sleep,” she said.