{"id":317,"date":"2007-08-10T10:08:21","date_gmt":"2007-08-10T14:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=317"},"modified":"2007-08-10T11:17:54","modified_gmt":"2007-08-10T15:17:54","slug":"indian-icon-surujpat-uncle-pat-mathura-dies-at-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=317","title":{"rendered":"Indian icon Surujpat Mathura dies at 84"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><big><b>Pat Mathura, 84, dies<\/b><\/big><\/p>\n<p>After ailing at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, veteran broadcaster Pat Mathura died yesterday at about 1 pm. He was 84. <\/p>\n<p>Religious and cultural groups paid tribute to Mathura, who worked at Radio Trinidad and produced the ground-breaking Indian Variety programme for television. <\/p>\n<p>June Gonsalves, former programme director at Radio Trinidad, was among those who paid tribute to Mathura yesterday.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n&#8220;He was a very likeable person who did his best in whatever he tried to do. He was a gentleman and a good family man,&#8221; said Gonsalves. <\/p>\n<p>Mathura started in 1947 at Radio Trinidad, where he worked for 47 years as an announcer, producing programmes with special emphasis on Indian art, culture and religion. <\/p>\n<p>In April 1994, he moved 103 FM, the first radio station dedicated to Indian programming. He became the youngest mayor of Port-of-Spain in 1955 and received the Hummingbird Gold Medal in 1995. <\/p>\n<p>In statements yesterday, the National Council for Indian Culture (NCIC) and the Hindi Nidhi hailed Mathura\u2019s contribution to culture and politics. NCIC&#8217;s president Deokinanan Sharma said Mathura was &#8220;a true example of a national hero as he found success as a culturalist and as a politician.&#8221;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsday.co.tt\/news\/0,62116.html\">www.newsday.co.tt\/news\/0,62116.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Indian icon Surujpat &#8216;Uncle Pat&#8217; Mathura dies at 84<\/b><br \/>\n&#8220;He was the original communication from the East Indian community to the wider section. He was the first to present Indian culture on the airwaves. Other than being a cultural person he was a civil minded man who became the youngest Mayor of Port of Spain. He kept a common touch and the nation will morn his loss,&#8221; Betaudier said.&#8221;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.trinidadexpress.com\/index.pl\/article_news?id=161188208\" title=\"Indian icon Surujpat 'Uncle Pat' Mathura dies at 84\">Full Article : trinidadexpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pat Mathura, 84, dies After ailing at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope, veteran broadcaster Pat Mathura died yesterday at about 1 pm. He was 84. Religious and cultural groups paid tribute to Mathura, who worked at Radio Trinidad and produced the ground-breaking Indian Variety programme for television. June Gonsalves, former programme director &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=317\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Indian icon Surujpat Mathura dies at 84<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}