Built Strong: Fitness forges unbreakable father-son bond

Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Fa­thers of­ten share spe­cial bonds with their chil­dren. For 80-year-old Chanka Ram­rat­tan, that bond is a shared love for fit­ness and ex­er­cise with his 46-year-old son Nari.

The Rousil­lac res­i­dent re­called that he be­gan ex­er­cis­ing at the age of 14, lift­ing weights and tak­ing long walks, a pas­sion that re­mains with him to­day. Dur­ing his time work­ing as a clerk at Tex­a­co, he said he would walk from For­est Re­serve to his Rousil­lac home, a dis­tance of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12 kilo­me­tres.

“I have done every marathon in Trinidad; you name a marathon, I could tell you. Mi­a­mi Marathon, To­ba­go Sea-to-Sea, which is the most dif­fi­cult marathon that I’ve ever done. I even have a tro­phy where I got the fastest speed walk­ing man, and I have all my medals,” he re­count­ed.

Chanka’s last marathon was a vir­tu­al one in 2021. Since then, his doc­tor has ad­vised him to slow down be­cause of his age. Now, he spends his time at the Health and Fit­ness Gym in Debe and South Oropouche about three times a week, walk­ing marathons of his own on the tread­mill.

“I do car­dio walk­ing for one hour, and I do weight train­ing for one hour. Then, I go in the sea and I swim and dive for one hour,” he not­ed.

Chanka firm­ly be­lieves reg­u­lar ex­er­cise has con­tributed to his longevi­ty and said he plans to keep go­ing.

“Ex­er­cise is very im­por­tant, and I like ex­er­cise. You go to Mi­a­mi, and you’ll see 90-year-olds and 100-year-olds in the gym, walk­ing, and even go­ing to marathons. That’s be­cause if you don’t ex­er­cise, you feel lethar­gic, you feel down. And you al­so have to read a lot. So, you ex­er­cise the brain, and you ex­er­cise the body,” Chanka ad­vised.

His son Nari be­lieves that per­se­ver­ance was one of the most im­por­tant lessons his fa­ther passed on to his chil­dren, along with a love of fit­ness and ex­er­cise.

“When you are look­ing at your dad, and your mom, and you are see­ing them ex­er­cis­ing and you are see­ing them fit, why would you not want to do the same thing? So, it was in­stilled in all of us, my­self and my two sib­lings. That ex­er­cis­ing be­came a rou­tine. My big­ger sis­ter, she would run, and my small­er sis­ter would do car­dio,” Nari ex­plained.

The en­gi­neer and busi­ness­man re­called start­ing to ex­er­cise and lift weights with his fa­ther and un­cle from a young age, cred­it­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence with shap­ing the dis­ci­pline and fit­ness mind­set he still fol­lows to­day.

How­ev­er, in 2016, he faced a big ob­sta­cle af­ter he hit his head dur­ing a div­ing ac­ci­dent, dam­ag­ing his C6 and C7 ver­te­brae and spinal cord.

“I was 37 at the time when I got in­to the ac­ci­dent. I lost all feel­ing in my body. The per­son that you see in front of you now is not the per­son I was three years ago. I ac­tu­al­ly couldn’t move at all; I could on­ly move my toe. It took a lot of hard work and will, to come out of that sit­u­a­tion. Even­tu­al­ly, I start­ed to trans­fer from my wheel­chair to a bed, to a car. I even built a ma­chine for me to stand up with a har­ness, and it pulls me up in the air so I can stand up straight. So, I used that for two years to get my body back to where it is,” Nari ex­plained.

Nari, who is cur­rent­ly a quad­ri­pleg­ic, said he was on­ly able to make progress through per­sis­tence and sup­port from his loved ones. Chanka ad­mit­ted that pe­ri­od was one of the most dif­fi­cult ex­pe­ri­ences of his life as a par­ent.

“I wouldn’t like to ex­plain that, that is a dif­fer­ent thing al­to­geth­er. He was in Mount Hope for six months, we had to go every day. It was a re­al try­ing thing, but you know, he is on the way to re­cov­ery. His moth­er wants to see every­thing good for him. For me, she will treat me sec­ond class and she will treat them first class, and she is right. Be­cause the ones that are able to walk, you give them less at­ten­tion be­cause they are tend­ing to them­selves. You have to give more at­ten­tion to the one that needs at­ten­tion,” he ac­knowl­edged.

But their bond through ex­er­cis­ing didn’t change. Dur­ing COVID-19, Nari said his fa­ther re­turned to weightlift­ing un­der his son’s guid­ance.

“When my dad was trapped in the house and he couldn’t go any­where, he was very mis­er­able. So, we had a sched­ule where he and I would use the weights that I have at home, and I would tell him what to do. He ac­tu­al­ly got a six-pack dur­ing COVID. So, we stayed home and ex­er­cised with my wife and all too. Af­ter, I re­alised now I could start back to go to gym,” Nari re­flect­ed.

Chanka said his son’s de­ter­mi­na­tion con­tin­ues to in­spire him.

“When you see some­body who is a bit in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed and they’re ex­er­cis­ing, they give you in­spi­ra­tion. Like if that man could do that, I could do that too. I wish Nari all the best. He is ad­her­ing to all his ex­er­cis­es, and he has a will that you won’t get in your next life. It’s prob­a­bly my genes passed on to him,” Chanka shared.

Nari said none of that would have been pos­si­ble with­out his fa­ther’s in­flu­ence.

“Dad, I just want to tell you, thank you very much for be­ing in our lives. You give us the en­cour­age­ment to go day to day, and just keep be­ing who you are, be­cause you have a strong will, strong mind, and that is what keeps us go­ing every day,” he said.