A “hustler” and “hero” who suffered in silence but was forgiving to the end

Apr 11, 2021 News

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The life story of Mohammed Khan…

By Shervin Belgrave

Kaieteur News – Many people who did not know Mohammed Khan, of Marshall Street, Annandale, East Coast Demerara (ECD), would have probably labelled him as a drunkard who wasted his life behind alcohol. Maybe that was how Harripersaud Bhagwandin, the 62-year-old businessman accused of causing Khan’s death, labelled him too.
Despite Khan’s addiction to alcohol, his three beautiful daughters, Shamina, Shanaz, and Shaneeza, along with his mother, Ramrajie, remembers him as their hero.
Khan, 51-year-old at the time, was found dead on March 20, 2021, lying on the roadside close to his home. His demise came one month after he was allegedly beaten by Bhagwandin on February 10, last. Bhagwandin had reportedly used a cricket bat to beat Khan for breaking a pipe in his (Bhagwandin) yard. That beating had left Khan recovering from severe head injuries and bruises about his body. Cops were convinced that one of those injuries had led to his death and this was eventually confirmed by an autopsy conducted on Khan’s remains. It showed that Khan died from brain haemorrhage as a result of an old injury.
As Khan’s daughters and his mother reflected on his relatively brief life on earth, they told Kaieteur News that even before his actual death, life might have killed their hero some 16 years before. The death of his only son, Jamal Khan, might have contributed to this, they related. Jamal, they said, was only four years old when he died of pneumonia on January 2, 2004. Soon after, Khan’s mother and daughters recalled that he became an alcoholic.

A HUSTLER
But prior to his son’s demise, Shamina and his mother, Ramrajie, recalled that Khan was a “hustler” who sacrificed his education, pride and dreams in order to educate his children, and satisfy the basic needs of his family.

Ramrajie, as she sat down with this reporter, recounted that Kanu (the name she called Khan) was the second of her four children. He was born on February 6, 1970. She was 20 years old at the time and married to a wealthy man. However, Ramrajie said that her husband became very abusive towards her and so when Kanu was only four, she decided to separate from his father.
“Life was not easy because his dad turned his back on us since then and I was not that educated to get a good paying job,” she recounted. As a result, Ramrajie related that they were severely impacted by poverty.
“I used to do catering and other small hustle. I used to make roti and sell; I had a small roti shop in ‘Tiger Bay’ called Kaieteur Roti Shop,” Ramrajie recalled.
But despite her hard work and effort, Ramrajie said that it seemed a near impossible task to provide enough for her children to enjoy at least a comfortable life.
Because of their impoverished life, she said, Khan was forced to drop out of school at the tender age of nine. He started “hustling” in the streets, she recalled, by selling sweets.
“I never wanted him to drop out of school; in fact, I used to beat him and send him to school but he would get away, just to hustle,” said Ramrajie.
Khan, according to her, just wanted to help by bringing in a little extra money home so that the family could have enough to eat. “Sometimes when I think he in school, I would meet him up in the streets selling,” his mother recalled.
Eventually, said Ramrajie, at age 14, Khan already had his own little confectionary business and “there was no stopping him,” she said.
“He used to be walking around with a wooden tray filled with his sweets sling around his neck,” she recalled.

A FAMILY MAN
Five years later, Khan introduced a young woman by the name of Shakira to his mother. Shakira eventually became his wife and mother of his daughters.
“He was only 19 and he showed me this girl that dress up in hat and jeans, and I seh: ‘so Kanu, you got girlfriend? Boy how you gon mine a family by selling sweety’?” Ramrajie laughed as she related vivid details of the day that Khan moved to Leguan to start his family.
As the years went by, Khan proved his mother wrong and showed her that a ‘’sweety seller’’ could indeed be a responsible man.
His first child, Shamina, was born in 1988 but it wasn’t until 1994 that he wedded Shakira. By 1997, the family expanded with the birth of their second daughter. In the year 2000, the love of his life, his late son, was born.
As Shamina reminisced on those years, she confessed that those were the best days, which she had with her father and the rest of the family.
“Dad could not afford all the luxuries in life, but he worked his ass off to make sure we got an education,” she recalled with pride.
She remembered accompanying him in the mornings, together with her sister, on their bicycle to catch the ferry at Leguan. There, Khan would travel to do his small scale buying and selling business to earn an income for his family.
He did not earn much, to have a savings account, Shamina said, but he had enough to cover their basic needs.
Nevertheless, this did not bother her because Khan, her hero, taught her to read. He was good at math and taught her that too.
“In fact, he taught all his daughters to read,” she related.
According to Shamina too, her father was a lover of nature and Reggae music. She also described him as a kind and generous man who taught them to forgive.
“Even the man who beat him up (Bhagwandin), he asked us to forgive him,” Shamina intoned.

DESTRUCTIVE PATH
As she reflected on her father’s life, Shamina recalled that alcohol, a “wicked and evil friend,” destroyed his life.
“He never told us exactly what was bothering or hurting him, but he had always wanted a son and when he (the son) took ill, dad did his best to save his life. Jamal died, however, and dad felt as if he was the cause because he was not rich enough to buy him the best medicines or take him to the best doctors and hospital. Dad, he blamed himself,” a heart-broken Shamina explained.
She related that her father tried to comfort himself by saying that he would replace his son by getting another child. While he did get another child in 2006, it was his third beloved daughter, Shaneeza, who had entered the world. By then, Shamina said, alcohol had already poisoned him. “We were forced to watch him deteriorate as alcohol consumed his life,” Shamina said as she recalled the many attempts to rehabilitate him but “he would return to the bottle.”
Khan’s final days were spent with his mother in Annandale where he did odd jobs to sustain his drinking habit, but he never departed from his principles of being kind to others.
“It pained us to see people taking advantage of him and calling him a drunkard because he is our hero and the foundation of our success today,” Shamina firmly asserted.
According to the still grieving young woman, she was optimistic that her father would have recovered from his addiction and resume his heroic ways. With his unexpected demise, Shamina believes that she was robbed of the opportunity to see her father fully rehabilitated and able to take his place in society. Nevertheless, she prays that he is forgiven by ‘’Allah’’ and that his soul will find eternal peace in heaven.

 

 

 

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