Sometimes, from his mother’s gallery in Mafeking in the dusky evening, Ramcumar Gangadeen, 56, would sit and watch the Ortoire River flowing quietly along and hear the muted roar of the ocean not far away. The river, Mayaro’s pride, famed for its occasional nightly blueish glow, brings no peace to Gangadeen’s mind, however. It’s a place he would rather flee from.
“Like I don’t even want to go by the river,” he said.
A humble “round de town” short drop taxi driver and labourer with the Rio Claro Regional Corporation, Gangadeen says the river reminds him of dark and perilous days when, with a .357 Magnum strapped to his waist, in his master pirogue, he would slice the waters of the Ortoire heading to a marijuana field in the Mafeking jungle. He knew about making guns and selling them too.
Happily married to Barbara now, father of one beloved child, Shellene, owner of a nice home, and counsellor to young men on drug blocks, the river brings back a flood of memories of the “bad man” life Gangadeen once dangerously lived as a young man. The bullet still lodged in his left thigh is a constant reminder too.
But he still tells his story to youth everywhere, pleading with them to give up their guns. Gangadeen’s father was an alcoholic and wife beater, he said, tracing the start of his former criminal career.
“We never had money to buy food and I dropped out of school in Form Three.
“I lived in the club, gambling, smoking weed, partying. My parents could no longer control me. I cussed them.”
But even during this rebellious time, young Gangadeen, nicknamed “Ranga” by then from the local phrase, “Rango Tango,” was sending one brother to school by cracking coconuts and playing wappie.
“He is a policeman today,” he said.
Gangadeen began cultivating a field “quite up in the forest on the banks” of the Ortoire.
“Other people planting weed nearby had their crops stolen too.”
It was during one of those heists that Gangadeen and his accomplices were sprayed with bullets. He went into business with a big man, bought two pirogues and was even doing business outside T&T.
“Homemade 12- and 16-gauge shotguns were being sold. The parts were bought and welded together.
“Every week there were orders. Sometimes, up to 96 would sell in one shipment,” he told the T&T Guardian. Gangadeen was accused of even trying to kill a man once.
“I ended up with a grievious bodily harm case in the High Court.
“When (Yasin) Abu Bakr and his men tried to take over the country in 1990 and burnt down police headquarters in town, I thought my files burn up too and I was a free man.”
The case came back to haunt Gangadeen years later, but by then he was a completely changed man.
“The case was dismissed. I still kneel down and thank God every single day.”
It was when he started using cocaine that everything crashed.
“I sell out everything, brand name clothes, boat. I would spend nights on cocaine blocks smoking and sleeping.”
He ended up in cells in police stations in Mayaro and San Fernando after he was arrested for petty crimes.
One day a group of people came on the cocaine block in his village to offer a way out to the young men. Gangadeen willingly accepted and got baptised.
“My life changed from that time. God gave me back everything. I stopped using drugs and got married.
“At first my father-in-law didn’t want us to marry. He said: ‘Barbara you going and marry Chunksie bad son?’ He never regretted it. I take good care of my family.”
Looking at the crime levels now, Gangadeen pleaded: “Young men put down the guns. After you kill a man for $4,000, $5,000, what benefits you getting?
“I lying down on a nice bed, watching a nice TV in a nice furnished home.
“You have to put down the guns to inherit that. When I put down mine, everything work out nice.”