'LIVING SIMPLE' AT
105
By Caldeo Sookram
Sunday Express
Section 2
March 26, 2000
Page 3
Meet the oldest resident of Ramai Trace, Debe.
She
is Dhanrajie Raghunanan who will celebrate her 105th birthday on April 5.
Today
has special significance for her however, because it is Phagwa 2000.
Many
thousands will wave liquid colour in the air at the Aranjuez Savannah where the
national celebration is taking place.
But
not so for Raghunanan. In her head she
has many colourful memories of Phagwa.
She will relive them quietly in the peace and cool of the home where
she's lived for the past 90 years.
Nowadays
a lot more people take part in the festival.
When she was a young woman it was not a national festival but celebrated
individually, in communities.
Her
late husband Raghunanan Ramcharan took more of an active part in the
festivities. He was an exponent of
chowtal singing and drumming and in his day made a name for himself in that
field. She can still play the dholak
and dhantal with some degree of perfection, but has been out of practice for
many years.
She
learned to play the harmonium at an early age without being taught formally and
as a result surprised many a listener with her skills on that instrument.
She
does not play it anymore however as she finds it too tiring.
Her
eyesight is still so good that she does not need spectacles to read.
She
also has a good memory of events of past years recalling in rich detail the
early years of the Ganesh Utsav festival at Ramai Traces, Debe. That festival has been celebrated in
Trinidad more than a hundred years now.
She
was born at Mohess Road, Penal and has lived at Ramai Trace for the past 90
years.
Dhanrajie
lives a simple life. She continues to
maintain her kitchen garden at home and cooks, washes and attends to other
household duties.
In
her younger days she worked hard in the cane fields and rice paddies. She reared cattle and other animals. She was also the mid-wife for the area.
A
devout Hindu, Raghunanan spends a lot of her time performing puja at her
private temple at home. She read the
Ramayana as a young girl and still reads from the Holy Hindu text. From the pages of the Ramayana she draws her
greatest inspiration for her daily duties.
She
does not mind people who eat meat and fish, but she maintains that her meals
continue to be vegetarian dishes, which she enjoys cooking herself.
Married
at a young age, Raghunanan is the mother of 11 children, eight of whom are
still alive. No exact count has been
taken of her grand-children, great grand-children, great great grand-children
and great great great grand-children, because the task is considered a bit too
tedious by family members.
Raghunanan
hasn't been to the doctor for a long time now and says there is no need to
visit the doctor because she does not suffer from any serious ailment requiring
medical attention.
Hindi
has been her main medium of communication with her family. As a result most of her children and grand-children
are proficient in the language.
She
speaks in broken English too for those who don't understand Hindi.
Most
of Raghunanan's children are talented in the field of song, music and dance
because there were always musical instruments at home.
Raghunanan
credits her long life to simple living and the blessings she received from the
elders of her family.
She
has witnessed many changes in her village and the national community and is
happy with the advance in modern science, technology and transport.