AS TOLD TO BC PIRES
My name is Hazarie Ramoutar and my wife Ria and I are the first official couple in Trini to the Bone, even though we will appear separately.
I’m from Central, Freeport. Other than three years at UWI, I lived at Arena Road until I was 27.
My father Mathura worked at a chicken farm for 40 years, my mom Leela for at least 20. My eldest brother, Dave, is in air-conditioning in Miami, my other brother Keshore is a mechanic. Hands-on stuff. Keshore and my sister Indera both live two or three minutes away from my parents. I am the last child in a very blue-collar family. My dad is one of 14 kids, my mother, one of four. So We had LOTS of cousins.
Where we are today is not the life I would have pictured, growing up as a young boy in Arena. I was the first from that family of 14 siblings to go to university. A few of my younger cousins followed suit eventually.
After a lot of school vacations spent in my brother’s garage, when my mechanic says, “This could be this thing,” I say, “Hmmm, why don’t you check this other thing?” They see you in a jacket and think, “This guy don’t know anything ‘bout car or air-condition or anything.”
I have a love of reading because I literally grew up with my brother Keshore’s trove of Louis L’Amour books. My wife will ask me, “How you come out so different?” You look around you and you see how people behave, the domestic abuse, the quarrelling. The way Louis L'Amour described the protagonists in his novels, they were always fair, men who would do the bad stuff if necessary, but would be kind and respectful to women… and family was always the centrepiece. That had a lot to do with who I became.
I got the reading from Keshore, the dressing properly and smelling good and liming from Dave. And the studying from Indera. She’s the inventory control manager of a leading Trinidadian company.
Until I left Trinidad, I went to a temple not too far from our family home. I remain a believer, though I have taken a more spiritual than religious path. I haven't done puja in many years. But when I do take part in religious rites, I expect them to work. I don't think it is just cultural.
My perspective: I cried because I didn’t have a shoe. Until I saw the man who didn’t have a foot.
I came from a Hindu family, went to a Presbyterian primary school, and a Christian secondary school. I guess I’m Trinidadian.
It was a big deal for me to even get into Presentation College, Chaguanas. Only 80 of the how many thousands of Central students who wanted to got into Pres. There were only two form one classes. My close friend to this day, Peer Nasseir, I met in form one. And the majority of 5J boys are in a WhatsApp chat group today.
I was more of a spectator than a player of sports at school.
I did a management degree at UWI, the wonderful years.
[caption id="attachment_950238" align="alignnone" width="768"] Hazarie and Ria Ramoutar. "It feels pretty good to be the first “official” couple in Trini to the Bone," says Hazarie Ramoutar. - courtesy BC Pires[/caption]
I was
