April 9th, 2015
CNN
Staff Reporter
It has been called the most savage attack in Guyanese History. But when he posted a photograph of West Indian cricketer Dwayne Bravo eating a banana on April 8th, 2015, Guyanese resident Ketchim Krishnapoor had little sense of the enormity of his actions.
"It's just a little photograph," Ketchim told reporters at a press conference outside his home, "it's not like I shoot the man."
But Ketchim's attempts to trivialise his racially charged actions have been met with anger by the international community. Millons took to facebook, twitter and youtube to vent their indignation, and within minutes several hundred websites had come to Bravo's aid, all pledging solidarity to a man whose recent life has been plagued by vicious attacks.
The son of Jewish immigrants, the Bravo family are no strangers to persecution. Fleeing the Nazis in 1942, the Bravos landed in Trinidad some 4 months later, an island in which they hoped to find peace and freedom. What they found, however, was a region awash with racism and drenched in insularity.
"Guyana and the rest of the West Indian islands have always been at odds," historian Gaby Fletcher told CNN. "There are many reasons for this, but the primary reason is psychological. The Guyanese are part of a continent, a landmass that dwarfs the rest of the Caribbean. This has bred a sense of entitlement and superiority which the other islands have no interest in pandering to....largely because they are also egotistical a**holes."
But Ketchim Krishnapoor ridicules the notion that he harbours feelings of entitlement. "Entitlement?" he told journalists on Tuesday. "The only thing I feel entitled to is some runs. How much Bravo averaging? Ten? Twenty? The man owe me at least one good innings!"
No Malice: Ketchim (above) claims he modelled his moustache on his favourite fruit.
Ketchim's criticisms come after a string of savage attacks on Dwayne Bravo, who was violently dropped from the West Indies cricket team weeks prior to the 2015 Cricket World Cup, an act which fans have called a Holocaustic Atrocity of Biblical proportions. "Make no mistake," Trinidadian Prime Minister Basdeo Panda said on the day of Bravo's sacking, "this is an act of war; a racist attempt by the Guyanese to push all Trinidadians off the team!"
But chief selector of the West Indies Cricket Board, Clive Lloyd, who is himself Guyanese, insists that Bravo was dropped for far more mundane reasons: "The man can't bat, the man can't sing, the man can't bowl....and yet the man want a pay rise?!"
Ketchim's photo (above) is said to carry racialist, colonialist connotations.
Race expert Patel Singh (above) has examined Ketchim's photo and denies the presence of racist stereotypes: "Werry werry few bananas are racist bananas, boss."
But where Lloyd sees pragmatism, others see only insularity.
Ironically, it is an insularity which some experts claim Ketchim's photograph does not support. "Vich banana racist and vich banana vich in witamin, only trained Babu like me can see," reknowned race expert Patel Singh said from his home in Delhi today. "This banana, boss, this represent Mother Lakshmi, God of beauty."
While Dwayne Bravo hopes to reclaim his place on the West Indies team, the future of the Caribbean as a whole seems far less optimistic. This is a region plagued by the ghosts of slavery, the frustrations of factions and weighed down by problems which at times seem wholly intractable. It is upon this powder-keg that Ketchim Krishnapoor dropped his banana. Whether this lowly fruit has sparked a chain-reaction of hate or healing, remains to be seen.