In the days before cell phones and selfies, the images here are of a time when journalists walked among ‘vagrants’ rather than turn up noses and move in the other direction, Archbishops stood among the homeless, and capitalists bowed to the jefe of communism.
‘That one!’ I said. Rattan Jadoo was showing photographs he had taken for the day on an assignment in the city. The photograph was not from the event he was assigned. His sharp eye had caught the Archbishop, Anthony Pantin, on a stroll, in intense exchange with one of the ‘destitutes’ on the city streets. Each figure exude the strength of their turf.
The Archbishop and the Vagrant
The photo which I captioned The Archbishop and the Vagrant, was slapped on the front page. (Today’s more sensitive environment would probably flinch a bit at the term in favour of the term socially displaced). I myself was casually dubbed the ‘vagrant reporter,’ as I had taken to champion the cause of the homeless on the city streets. On the social and environmental beat, along with local government, education and culture, I kept my feet on the ground.
The photograph would win Rattan Jadoo a Media Award. He has won many before and thereafter.
Well-seasoned photo journalistic eye
Now the media world bids farewell to Jadoo, whose career in journalism spans almost 40 years. He died on Friday after ailing for some time.
He was already well-seasoned as a photo-journalist when I joined the profession as a cub reporter. But following working at the Guardian, we would both be among the founding staff of Newsday, that began in 1993 in response to the public demand for ‘good news’. Rattan was head photographer. I was the ‘good news’ reporter. We were allowed editorial freedoms to shape the newspaper into an entity that would soon enough be threatened into conformity by market forces. Liberalism cornered by Capitalism.
Liberal Communism Communal Capitalism
The second photo montage is of a visit of Cuban Leader Fidel Castro. Apart from covering the event for news, it became the subject of one of my ‘news behind the news’ features. Distilling the comic incongruity of the events of the day came naturally and provided mind cooler for me from the rough and tumble of journalism and as a writer, and I daresay readers as well.
I was often told how Mr Anthony Sabga the founding jefe of the Ansa McAl empire, as others, would be chuckling at my satirical pieces, even while the lesser gods of the Empire themselves shook and shifted uncomfortably at my journalistic and satirical pokings and proddings. Humour is the stuff that we are made of. When we lose it we lose bits of ourselves.
The article ‘Fidel Castro Was Star of the Show’, captures Fidel’s guffawing at, as much as with his Caribbean capitalist comrades – his audience in the main in the room – the media, the mainstream, and all in the tone of light banter. He took immense delight in tormenting his tormenters and this occasion offered much fodder.
Flurry of Fawning
Heck, following the flurry of fawning that accompanied his entrance, Castro’s first words at the podium was to threaten to take the media to the Human Rights Commission (the first line in the article). He was joking, poking, at his critics, responding the flash of camera lights as he began speaking. The discordance of it all, vis a vis what is established as the norm stuck out like the Communist tongue the dog Nick – as the reputed dictator, Castro – was liberally wagging at the liberalists and the many ‘ists’, ‘isms’ and schisms in the room. Holding up a mirror to show their likeness, he spotlighted how dictatorship can wear many disguises, even in acclaimed democracies.
I did not have to ask or tell Rattan which photograph I wanted. I already knew my lead character would be Castro’s dog Nick, given pride of the place to sit on the well decorated ‘throne’ the organisers had prepared for Castro himself. The two photographs in the images on the right, Nick, and Castro with former Prime Minister/President Arthur NR Robinson and a bevy of businessmen.
Rattan’s sharp journalistic eye for such moments of incongruity, the odd in the mainstream drift distinguished his photography from what we do today with photo tools so readily within reach.
When we have access to tools to capture every moment as a matter of record, moments like these, as mundane as they are, stand out as extraordinary moments that define the character of this little isle of mine.
Godspeed Rattan Jadoo. Take a few more good ones for the records!
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About Dr Kris Rampersad
Dr Kris Rampersad is evolving blended media education and cultural tools, techniques. She is a UNESCO-trained educator/facilitator, National Geographic certified educator, global Woman Techmakers’ Ambassador and Google Digital Skills Ambassador. To support, collaborate, sponsor or adopt a community, find out more in this link.