Narine Dasrat was also known as Cecil to the wider community and as Sir to his students. He was born on November 25, 1954, to Sumintra and the late Dasrat of Anna Catherina, W.C.D. He had 10 siblings, and although he grew up with limited resources, he made the most of every opportunity presented. His siblings recalled that from a tender age, he loved reading and would save up his pocket change to buy textbooks and novels, which he kept safely in a box.
Just after completing his secondary education, he attended the Cyrill Potter’s Training College for educators and thence began his career as a school teacher at Stewartville Secondary School. Although his career was what brought him to this school, he found something he had perhaps only read about in his novels. A fair maiden who captivated his entire being from the first glance, he had to have her, and he did. In 1980, he married this beauty, whom he always considered to be the best thing that ever happened to him. Their union gave rise to three children: Fiaz Imtiaz, Cindy Marina, and the late Riaz Omar. He was also the grandfather of four handsome boys: Asif, Saiyon-Zayne, Saif, and Alex.
In between being a husband and father, he found time to excel in academia by completing his bachelor’s degree in English Literature. In 1992, his excellence earned him the opportunity to teach overseas in the Caribbean islands. Realising that this job would offer financial stability for his family, he made the big sacrifice of moving to a foreign island nation called St. Lucia. There, he worked for 18 years at Clendon Mason Memorial Secondary School as a CXC English teacher and disciplinarian. Upon his retirement, he returned to Guyana, became a humble rice farmer, and continued to mould young minds regionally at the Saraswati Vidya Niketan High School. He was well adored by his students; they posited that he was the best teacher ever, and he was the kind of teacher who made them actually want to go to school. During his career, he lent his expertise to the Caribbean Examination Council as an examiner and marker for English Literature. In 2018, he was diagnosed with cancer. He fought many battles over the years, but this was the hardest, although he kept the bravest face. He never stopped working and was even preparing to mark papers for CXC just a few days prior to his passing.
Informally, my father was the man who, although he was far away, wrote us letters and emails every chance he got. He was the man who, when I was a child, would put my feet on his so he could teach me how to dance. And if you knew him well, he was the man with the most unique dance moves. He was the man who made us watch movies with subtitles so we could learn to read and improve our English. He was the man who painted his house purple as an experiment and then tiled his entire yard just so we didn’t have to clean cai off of the concrete. He was the man who paid our UG tuition, no matter how expensive it was to become an engineer or a dental surgeon.
My father was a great person. He lived, he pursued, he sacrificed, he achieved, and his legacy will live on through his children and grandchildren. His book collection grew from a box to a cabinet and then to a library that he arranged by author. And just like his collection of books, our memories of him are stacked in chronological order and will be well preserved as long as we live.
