Deen's Doubles Depot

his life that he successfully ascended, kept his family together and out of abject poverty. In defiance of an oppressive system, this illiterate peasant pulled himself up by the bootstraps, charted a different destiny and achieved his life’s objective of being his own boss in a business he created from a simple idea. His life is a story of possibility. He did not wait for the state to guide or lift him up towards entrepreneurship. He was determined to succeed despite the state rather than because of it. His confidence came not from believing that he was inferior or by associating his plight with his birth, but by his indomitable will and strong belief, that the world of his dreams was possible. This motivated him to spend his life in pursuit of conquering abject poverty and servility that colonialism inflicted upon him and his people. Mamoo Deen’s mission in life was not motivated by profit but spiritually driven to feed the poor with a low-cost, high-protein, nutritious vegan street food that was within their meager means. He selflessly taught the trade to his relatives, friends and strangers alike who were experiencing the same vicious cycle of poverty as he did. He was like a warrior gathering his troops to fight the common enemies named poverty and exploitation. His mission was to spread the spirit of entrepreneurship with his Doubles business that for him represented a celebration of struggle and triumph over an oppressive system. His business model now provides self employment to hundreds of people among whom several became very wealthy. The fact that we now take the accomplishments of the Doubles business for granted underscores how significant its progress has been, given that eighty years ago its success would have been considered unthinkable. These achievements depended on the sustained commitment and sacrifice of an extraordinary entrepreneur committed to a vision of his world. He gave his life to something bigger than himself. His achievements were the manifestation of his character. Trinidad at the time presented him with the ideal setting for his life’s adventure. When Mamoo Deen introduced Doubles in 1936 he was making his contribution to the blending of the Indian culture with a plural society in its infancy in Trinidad & Tobago. The national buffet of culinary delights has been enriched by his creative input. His nation-building input certainly helped in stirring the melting pot of a plural society that describes itself now as “all ah we is one.”
His untimely demise at age sixty two denied him the opportunity to see his creation take flight to become the ubiquitous street food of the nation but Mamoo Deen’s immortality will reside in his creation that lives. He may have lived an uneducated and ordinary life but he left an extraordinary legacy. Although he has not been officially recognized for the national heritage that he created for his country of birth, he has left ‘a personal check payable to Trinidad and Tobago for an amount in excess of his lifespan.’ As a rural rube with a vision he was the ideal of a self-made man who came and gave without taking.

[Thanks for your gift of Doubles, Mamoo Deen!]