I remember when I returned to Trinidad. It was part of a year long negotiation between the old man and myself - on the phone, he would tell me how great things were and that he wished I was down here. After a year of that, any well intentioned son would consider it. And the potential was supposed to be there; Trinidad was supposed to be an internet hub in some of the original plans I had seen in the 90s.

And I wanted to start my own software company. A proprietary software company, back then, doing contract work and competing with the folks in India. It seemed possible over the phone, my father being the bright ray of sunshine that he could be when he believed in something. I'd seen it before. In the 1980s, when he was trying to sell Rain-X down here and no one was buying (and for a while there during this decade, guess what? 20 years later...) When he was starting the advertising magazine from within this same house, the 'Trini Trader' - and when a fellow named Jeeran Singh hosed him on that by doing sales and pocketing the money. 'The Solar Company', where I wrote his business plan and when the bank wouldn't loan him money because of the collateral... it was my issue with the business plan. Someone had to be blamed, I suppose. { Read more }