Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

He’s been known through­out his life­time as a fight­er. But now for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP and min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan is in an­oth­er fight: for his life, against Stage Four prostate can­cer, which has spread to his bones.

And Ram­bachan has ap­proached the bat­tle by be­com­ing an ad­vo­cate for men in Trinidad and To­ba­go to get prostate checks.

Ram­bachan de­tailed his di­ag­no­sis around the same time Mode Alive chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Gary Aboud re­vealed he’s bat­tling prostate can­cer.

Ram­bachan, 77, an aca­d­e­mi­cian and cul­tur­al ac­tivist, is a politi­cian of 50 years, a found­ing mem­ber of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion, and ONR deputy leader and al­so a for­mer UNC deputy leader.

A for­mer may­or of Ch­agua­nas (2003-2009), Ram­bachan was a Sen­a­tor and UNC Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter (Works, In­dus­try and Tourism, For­eign Af­fairs) and Am­bas­sador to Brazil (1987-1990).

He’s served as a Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er and is known for his role in the es­tab­lish­ment of In­di­an Ar­rival Day. Af­ter serv­ing as UNC Tabaquite MP since 2010, he re­tired in 2020.

To­day, the Chin­maya Mis­sion will do 108 Bha­jans in ho­n­our of Ram­bachan, a de­vo­tion­al singer of 60 years, who pi­o­neered the so­lo chant­i­ng of 108 bha­jans in 1986.

Ram­bachan, sound­ing slight­ly tired last Fri­day, cit­ed a mis­take he made: “One of the hard­est things for me to ac­knowl­edge is that I didn’t have reg­u­lar prostate checks as I should have. I wish I’d un­der­stood ear­li­er that prostate can­cer can de­vel­op with­out ob­vi­ous warn­ing signs.

“I want oth­er men to learn from my mis­take: there’s ab­solute­ly noth­ing em­bar­rass­ing about hav­ing your prostate ex­am­ined, hav­ing a PSA blood test, noth­ing un­man­ly about telling your doc­tor you need to get checked.”

He said can­cer changed his per­spec­tive: “With my di­ag­no­sis, I had to con­front a re­al­i­ty I’d nev­er ex­pect­ed: my can­cer had spread to my bones. That’s a se­ri­ous di­ag­no­sis. But I’ve al­so learned there’s a dif­fer­ence be­tween un­der­stand­ing the se­ri­ous­ness of an ill­ness and sur­ren­der­ing to it. I’ve cho­sen not to sur­ren­der but to be­lieve I shall over­come.

“That doesn’t mean I de­ny the med­ical re­al­i­ty. I know metasta­t­ic prostate can­cer is gen­er­al­ly re­gard­ed as treat­able and con­trol­lable rather than cur­able. But ‘not cur­able’ doesn’t mean noth­ing can be done. There’s a tremen­dous dif­fer­ence - and doc­tors, med­i­cines, dai­ly re­search and hope.”

Ram­bachan has cho­sen not to ap­proach can­cer with a mind­set of de­feat. “There have been mo­ments of fa­tigue, un­cer­tain­ty and anx­i­ety. Mo­ments when I’ve won­dered what lies ahead. But I’ve de­lib­er­ate­ly cho­sen not to al­low can­cer to de­fine me.

“I know there’ll be dif­fi­cult days, un­cer­tain­ty, de­mand­ing treat­ments. But I have a choice about how I re­spond. Doc­tors are re­spon­si­ble for the med­ical bat­tle. But there’s a bat­tle with­in me to re­main hope­ful, de­ter­mined and spir­i­tu­al­ly ground­ed. A bat­tle I in­tend fight­ing dai­ly. I have can­cer, but can­cer doesn’t have me. It’s some­thing I’m fight­ing—not who I am.”

Faith has be­come an enor­mous source of strength. “I’ve al­ways be­lieved in God, but ill­ness has a way of mak­ing one’s be­liefs more per­son­al. Faith means be­liev­ing I’m not alone: pray­ing, main­tain­ing hope, ac­cept­ing treat­ment while keep­ing my spir­it strong.”

He’s shared his sto­ry as he want­ed to demon­strate the im­por­tance of courage, faith, and a pos­i­tive out­look when con­front­ed with dif­fi­cul­ties—and want­ed to re­in­force his mes­sage to men: “Please don’t ne­glect your prostate health. Ear­ly test­ing can make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence... it isn’t a mat­ter of shame or em­bar­rass­ment... let’s re­move the em­bar­rass­ment, fear and ma­cho at­ti­tude.”

Ram­bachan said the sit­u­a­tion has made him ap­pre­ci­ate fam­i­ly more deeply.

“It’s made me val­ue an­oth­er sun­rise, re­mind­ed me time is pre­cious. But it hasn’t re­moved my de­ter­mi­na­tion to live. I in­tend to con­tin­ue my Sat­sang and Bha­jans; speak­ing, writ­ing, serv­ing and en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers. I in­tend to con­tin­ue do­ing what­ev­er good I can for as long as I’m able.”

Aboud wells up, re­veal­ing can­cer di­ag­no­sis

Well-known Mode Alive chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Gary Aboud be­came emo­tion­al in a re­cent post, re­veal­ing he has can­cer.

“Ear­ly de­tec­tion is the best sav­iour of prostate can­cer. Why we’re get­ting it? I live so com­plete­ly healthy - ate or­gan­ic, healthy, didn’t use plas­tic, no BPA - and I got it,” added Aboud, who’s al­so Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea’s cor­po­rate sec­re­tary.

Aboud said he want­ed to let peo­ple know he has can­cer since his school friends are ap­proach­ing 70 and his rel­a­tives al­so aren’t do­ing prostate checks. He urged cit­i­zens to en­cour­age male rel­a­tives to do the blood test if they’re over 50, in­clud­ing if of Afro-TT de­scent.

Aboud said he re­mains for­ev­er pos­i­tive, “And I’m gonna beat it! And if I don’t beat it, I’m go­ing to vis­it my Mom and Dad, and I’m hap­py about that...(but) the good news is that I’m much more than the bad things that hap­pened to me.”

“Can­cer doesn’t like hap­py peo­ple, so be hap­py...there’s so much to be grate­ful for, so much love every­where you look.”