Port-of-Spain: Basdeo Panday, who became the first Indian-origin Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, used to say that if you see a lion and himself fighting, feel sorry for the lion.
But now the "lion" has formally bowed out of politics after a career spanning nearly three and a half decades.
Panday, a lawyer by profession, was prime minister 1995-2001, and eventually surrendered the position. He stalked the political landscape of the country from 1976 to the dissolution of the ninth parliament last Thursday.
After arbitrarily refusing to hold his United National Congress' (UNC) internal elections for several years, he finally conceded and the polls were held in January.
Former attorney general Kamla Persad Bissessar won the leadership vote by a landslide, relegating Panday to the backroom of politics.
Panday's political career has been a very chequered one. In 1966, he came to visit his ailing mother from London, before leaving to study for a PhD in Economics in India on a Commonwealth scholarship.
He was invited by politicians to fight for the masses as the then government led by Eric Williams was fast becoming too autocratic.
