tidings
Clint Chan Tack
Former NEWSDAY chief photographer Rattan Jadoo, 60, was remembered by relatives, friends, colleagues and even public figures as a giant of a man who loved his life, family, friends and work.
He was also remembered as a perfectionist and someone who captured the essence of Trinidad and Tobago through his lens.
These were some of the glowing tributes paid to him at his funeral at the Johnny Bedasie home in New Settlement, Dow Village, California on Thursday.
Jadoo died on Monday after a month long illness and diabetes.
He was a key part of the founding Newsday team led by the late former editor-in-chief Therese Mills and former news editor John Babb, now retired.
Family friend Arthur Ramsaroop said Jadoo was friends with the Bedasie family for many years. Jadoo had been living with the family for months before he fell ill.
Ramsaroop described him as a celebrity.
“He is a very famous person in this country. He was born in 1962 and he developed a skill. He decided to become a photographer at a time when nobody was doing it.”
Some of Jadoo’s awards for photographic excellence and some of the pictures he took were on display. Next to him in his casket was his camera and a long lens.
Ramsaroop reflected on Jadoo’s 13 years with the Trinidad Guardian and his joining forces with Mills and Babb to launch Newsday.
“His name is on these two papers. All over the country, he was famous then…He is famous now.”
Ramsaroop predicted that in the next 100 years, anyone studying the history of TT “will have to refer to his work”.
He said the Bedasie family knew Jadoo “when he was healthy, when he was good” and when Jadoo came to live with them “we all treated him like he was a Bedasie”.
In his time with the family, Ramsaroop continued, Jadoo was seen as a father figure, an uncle and even a grandfather.
He remembered Jadoo as a gregarious person who loved a good lime.
“When he went on release, he was pulling everything. All he had to do was make sure Mr Jadoo was the most important person in the party.”
When Jadoo lived on Railway Road in Couva, Ramsaroop recalls, his house was well decorated for Christmas and he often welcomed friends and relatives for a meal. But while Jadoo was a great cook, Ramsaroop drew a few smiles from members of the gathering when he mentioned that Jadoo had never quite mastered the skill of roti making.
When he got sick, Ramsaroop said, “We (the Bedasie family) didn’t get rid of him when he got sick.” He added that more than a simple room and bed in their home, the family gave Jadoo love and care.
Ramsaroop said Jadoo would regale them with stories from his time in the media, including a trip to South Africa when he became close friends with former West Indies cricket captain Brian Lara.
He also said that Jadoo’s expert photography had fully emerged from the images he captured in Germany in 2006, when TT participated in the World Cup for the first time. Besides taking great sports photographs, Ramsaroop said, Jadoo was knowledgeable about many sports, especially football and cricket.
Expressing condolences on behalf of Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and his Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh said he knew Jadoo when he was a member of the now defunct Trinidad Sugar and General Workers Union and long after he entered politics in 2010.
Indarsingh said it was at a function at the Persad-Bissessar constituency office on Wednesday night that they learned of Jadoo’s death from some of his former colleagues.
“That conversation was also raised with the leader of the opposition and she asked me this morning to express my condolences to the family for his separation.
Indarsingh described Jadoo as a man “who would have told you like it is. He would have spoken to you in a very honest and very open way.”
Some people may have found Jadoo’s conversations with them too brutal.
Indarsingh said, “As one of his former colleagues told me last night, that man could have bullied anyone.”
But this was never done to humiliate anyone. Indarsingh said Jadoo’s comments always had at their core the hope that people would learn something and become better at whatever they did.
“That was the direction he wanted.”
Recalling his relationship with Jadoo, Indarsingh said, “He took the picture of many events in TT, politically and otherwise, for the general reading public.”
When people did not understand what was being written in the stories published in Newsday, Indarsingh said it was Jadoo’s photographs that made that understanding clear.
“This is something we would all remember him for. This morning, we pay tribute to a giant.”
Indarsingh hoped that the thousands of photos Jadoo had taken during his media career would be donated to either the University of the West Indies or some other entity “that would use it towards the continued documentation of the history of TT”.
Newsday photographer Roger Jacob said Jadoo joined the Guardian in 1981, the year he was born. He described Jadoo as a mentor and father figure to many photographers during his media career.
“He shared with us.”
Jacob said people who really got to know Jadoo knew what a loving person he was.
“If you took that time, you would appreciate Rattan for the love he had for everyone.”
Jacob said Jadoo’s legacy will live on forever through the many photographers who learned their skills from him.
Some of Jadoo’s relatives and friends wept as his coffin was taken from the Bedasies home and taken to the Waterloo crematorium. At the site, other relatives, friends and former media colleagues gathered to pay their last respects.
