by Rajendra Ramlogan
On March 25, 2003, Ralphy Ramcharan left his home to provide lessons in St Augustine. Due to the postponement of classes, he stopped at a bar in Curepe, where he met Nadia Pooran and her cousin Shelly Ann Anganoo. He left the bar with the girls following him when he was robbed by them and two men who had joined the enterprise. Ralphy was placed in the backseat of his car, stabbed several times with a pair of scissors, and beaten with a wheel spanner. He was tied up, stripped of his clothes and dumped in a pond in Barataria. Ralphy’s body was discovered with 54 injuries. Ralphy entered Iere High School with me in 1973.
Meet Nadia Pooran. She was convicted, along with the other participants, of manslaughter arising out of the death of Ralphy. She has since fled to the United Kingdom, where she is seeking asylum due to having witnessed a murder in 2019 and because of the scorn and ridicule she faced after she came out of prison after serving time for manslaughter. According to Trinidad and Tobago (TT) Newsday, she is “suing the State for alleged contravention of her rights. She has complained of being subjected to cruel and unusual treatment during the five years she was remanded without bail for murder and for the eight years on conviction while she awaited the hearing of her appeal on sentence.” (July 16, 2022) With a battery of lawyers, her judicial journey is now fully underway.
As usual, it is all about the perpetrator. History never recalls the victims. That is left to the memories of those that love and continuously grieve for them. We remember Abdul Malick but do we recall Gail Ann Benson? We remember Dr Dalip Singh but do we recall Inge Brown? We remember Boysie Singh but do we recall Thelma Haynes?
Let me share some aspects of the life of Ralphy. In 1973, a rural Indian male or “coolie” was often perceived as having a non-aggressive demeanour and bamboo straight oil-slicked hair. Ralphy, a humble young man, was accurately characterised as such, perhaps testimony to coming from Debe, South Trinidad, part of which was once referred to as ‘Cooliewood’. A young boy that existed in the shadows of the class, except for an early manifestation of a rare brilliance in the sciences, particularly mathematics. In the days when mathematics comprised three separate subjects, geometry, algebra, and arithmetic, he was the king, who earned the sobriquet ‘Pythagoras’ after the famed Greek philosopher and mathematician who gave us the Pythagoras Theorem. His brilliance was quite apparent in one incident that I observed. We were given a complex simultaneous equation to solve as homework and on the morning of the class, our redoubtable mathematics teacher, Norma Hassanali (now deceased), called on Ralphy to solve the equation on the blackboard. Ralphy had not done this homework but proceeded to the blackboard with his homework book blank. On the spot, without missing a beat while looking at his book as if following the workings contained therein; he solved the equation.
As we graduated from Form 5, Ralphy was the top science student and he proceeded to GCE Advanced Levels. At this point, I noticed Ralphy started missing a lot of school time. One version that circulated in the class was that he had to work to assist the family and facilitate his studies. Despite his being absent from most of Form 6 Lower, Ralphy topped the Sciences at Iere High School in 1980, with an ‘A’ grade in mathematics. This type of grade was almost unknown in a rural school like Iere High School. Those of us that succeeded at Advanced Levels proudly made our way to the University of the West Indies (UWI). Ralphy did not. He started working to build up the capital to pursue his university education. He made a brief appearance in the Civil Engineering Department at UWI in 1981, but soon dropped out and proceeded with a career as a teacher while managing a vegetable stall in the Penal Market. This was when the life of Ralphy took a strange turn.
Ralphy renounced his ‘coolie’ boy appearance and assumed a very modern outlook with a striking new stylish hairstyle. He acquired a newfound confidence. He was no longer shy and unassuming. Ralphy brought out a Carnival Band in Debe. In the 2002 General Elections, Ralphy took on Dr Roodal Moonilal for the Oropouche electoral seat on behalf of the Citizens Alliance led by Wendell Mottley, a former Finance Minister from the People’s National Movement, while eschewing the traditional ethnic-based politics. That year Iere High School had two alumni on the ballots, Ralphy and none other than Kamla Persad-Bissessar. The metamorphosis of Ralphy was baffling to many of his classmates as he was never seen as possessing the personality that now emerged. But he was a happy man until he received 54 injuries. A beautiful mind consigned to the dark and putrid waters of a pond in Barataria.
So while Nadia Pooran fights the State for what she alleges was the breach of her constitutional right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, Ralphy has already had his right to life extinguished. His 54 injuries inflicted by a wheel spanner and a pair of scissors clearly breached his right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual treatment. You are remembered Pythagoras, and your departure from this world has left an unfillable void for many of us.
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!!’
(Lady Macbeth, from Shakespeare’s Macbeth)
Professor Rajendra Ramlogan, Commercial and Environment Law, The University of the West Indies. The views expressed are entirely his own.