RAMJATTAN RAMDEEN (JOHN AGITATION)
50 YEARS OF AGITATION
By Robert Clarke
Trinidad Guardian
November 5, 2001
Features Page 1
How John Agitation got his name
Performing at a church bazaar, in a play he had written, Ramjattan Ramdeen played a character iterested in gaining the hand of his girlfriend. From a July 2001 Cana report: "Agitation had to write a letter to his girlfriend's authoritarian father to impress his intelligence upon him and thus allow him to marry his daughter. According to the letter read out to the audience in the local dialect: Dear Sir, after long consideration and deep meditation you possess in the nation, I have a strong inclination to become your relation. On acceptance of my declaration, I will make preparation, without hesitation, to move my locaiton, to a more concenient situation. Then for the solemnisation of my matrimonisation will be aggrandisation of yours truly, John Agitation."
Far along a potholed road, tucked in amongst the bois canot, abandoned cocoa and citrus of Caratal, there is an unimposing little home.
In it lives a master storyteller.
Ask anyone along that road the whereabouts of the man you are seeking, and they will tell you: "Agitation? Keep going."
On Saturday, John Agitation will perform at his golden jubilee celebration at the Jean Pierre Complex.
The last of the long-time "s... talkers", he'll give the new generation of comedians a run for their money with his spendidly crafted jokes - from another time and place.
Amusing, realistic tales born in the heart of rural Trinidad, rather than the fictional, regurgitated e-mail material recycled from foreign lands.
It was 1927 in Caratal. Night had fallen. A cocoa worker's wife was "making a child."
At some dark hour of the morning, the labourer came out of his home. with his shotgun pointed skyward, he fired five shots. The whole of Caratal knew then, his wife ha given birth to a boy. His name was Ramjattan.
So it may have happened, the way it did in the old days: the birth of a Caratal comedian.
Travel that same potholed road again. Stop. Ask for the home of Ramjattan Ramdeen. Blank stares. The man has become his sobriquet.
In the old days, young Ramjattan would sit at home and read to his father from the newspaper.
Other times, his father would tell the children stories of sucouyants and douens. After sitting around the kerosene lamp, "frighten like hell", Ramjattan would refuse to go to his room.
Then came his introduction to comedy.
Jack spector, an early comedian, was the supporting act in a beauty queen show at the Queen's Park Oval. Ramjattan wanted to go, but could not: he wasn't white. A friend smuggled him in.
"I wasn't interested in the queens really. I was interested in how to get a laugh," he said.
In 1951, at 24, Ramdeen began his life in public comedy. He had graduated from the Progressive Educational Institute and joined the civil service.
Landy de Montbrun, another early comic, introduced him to an audience at the Oval. He told a joke, slightly nervous that he was crossing the boundary of taste.
But when the crowd reacted, he could see they were elated.
"They were very happy to see a drak fella," says Agitation.
In due course: "Everybody having something, they inviting John Agitation."
The way he refers to himself in the third person is a charming idiosyncrasy of 74-year-old Ramdeen. It is as if he and his comic alter ego ae two seperate individuals.
Agitation picked up his stage name from a character he played in an act.
A few years back, when he was unwell, the parish priest prayed for his health: "Lord, help John Agitation recover. And I say Agitation, for that is how you know him best."
Laughter always was a way of life in the country, a place where, as Agitaiton says: "We still have neighbours.
There were people like Compere Rawle, who would tell you ten different jokes if you passed him ten times in the day.
When the village men came together to lime in the evening, the ten jokes would become 20.
Today, living on his civil service pension, Agitaion performs practically every week of the year, although he sometimes refuses performances when he wants to "take a hunt".
He points to a bois canot tree and informs me he can shoot 'gouti "right there".
On his land, there are oranges, mandarins, tangelos, portugal and grapefruit. Like comedy, agriculture is a hobby.
An hour with Agitation is like a comedy show, or as Agitation prefers to call it, "a good s--- talk".
With a twinkle in his eye, he can deliver joke after joke after joke.
He changes personae.
One minute he is a Jewish millionaire attempting to find a man with two penises to marry his daughter, the next he is Eric Williams biting a piece of rubber tyre at a dinner for Emperor Haile Selassie.
Then he is a Vincentian estate guard escorting a young boy with a stolen coconut.
His accents are polished, his dialects authentic, his memory for jokes amazing. His jokes are so true to life, sometimes you are hard-pressed to tell when he has slipped from the world of reality into comedy.
But Agitation lives in the world of contemporary comedy. He has had to adapt.
He no longer performs solely for audiences made up largely of God-fearing people. He has to take decisions to "cross the lines".
The younger generation, says Agitation, want to hear what they have heard abroad.
"Sometimes, you drop a good joke and it go flat,' he says.
"Because of hte audience, you have to put out your feelers."
He says he knows when to raise the level of his humour and when to lower it.
Jamaica has not Americanised its comedy, says Agitation, and neither should we.
Even though he tells his own homespun yarns about former US President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, he says: "We should try to protect our indigenous cultures. American humour is not our thing."
All the old performers from Agitation's early days are long gone. He is the last man standing.
But there are no plans of leaving the hobby which is so intertwined with his life.
"You could never retire from comedy," he says.
"Even in your own village, people want you to come and make them laugh."
As for those who borrow or steal his jokes, Agitation says it's not a problem.
"I go write another joke tomorrow morning," he says.
The more jokes Agitation tells, the more likely he is to laugh.
He maintains his composure - most of the time. But since this is not a stage performance, he occasionally breaks down at a crucial point - briefly.
In this secluded life, way off the beaten track, laughter cannot be such a terrible thing.
Agitation begins yet another yarn, but stops suddenly and ponders something: "Forget that one. Let me give you another joke."