Dr Ku­mar Ma­habir

The Di­vali hol­i­day will be ob­served on Oc­to­ber 26, co­in­cid­ing with the 25th an­niver­sary of the Di­vali Na­gar, the first Hin­du theme park in the world. In the week lead­ing to Di­vali, the Hin­du Fes­ti­val of Lights, more than ten mil­lion deyas are lit in homes, tem­ples, of­fices, streets and parks. This fes­ti­val has be­come the sec­ond-largest, open-air, na­tion­al fes­ti­val in mul­ti-eth­nic T&T, af­ter Car­ni­val. The hub of all Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in the is­land is the Di­vali Na­gar site in Cen­tral Trinidad, which was es­tab­lished in 1986. In­deed, the Na­gar is the most-fre­quent­ly vis­it­ed en­ter­tain­ment cen­tre in the coun­try dur­ing Di­vali, sec­ond on­ly to the Grand Stand in the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah dur­ing Car­ni­val.

The Na­gar pro­vides a pub­lic stage for lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al per­form­ing artistes. These mod­els, singers, dancers, mu­si­cians, choirs and or­ches­tras en­ter­tain lo­cals, as well as vis­i­tors from the rest of the world. The Na­gar has grown to epic pro­por­tions, at­tract­ing many artistes and tourists to this in­ter­na­tion­al spir­i­tu­al tourist des­ti­na­tion. They come from Be­lize, Ja­maica, St Vin­cent, Grena­da, St Lu­cia, Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe, Guyana and Suri­name in the Caribbean. Oth­ers come from French Guiana, USA, UK, Hol­land and In­dia. Promi­nent guests in­clud­ed the pres­i­dent of In­dia, Dr Shankar Day­al Shar­ma and the two pres­i­dents of T&T, Noor Has­sanali and George Maxwell Richards.

Each year, the Na­gar choos­es a theme based on Hin­duism and In­di­an cul­ture for its pre­sen­ta­tion. The theme is re­searched and ex­hib­it­ed by Ba­ba Sat­narayan Mourya, an artiste from In­dia. Var­i­ous modes of in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing de­signs, paint­ings, posters and pho­tographs are show­cased. For nine nights, the Na­gar is trans­formed in­to a blend of the sa­cred and sec­u­lar, where the bus­tle of com­merce min­gles with the melody of prayer. Booths show­case and sell prod­ucts and ser­vices to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150,000 vis­i­tors. Com­mer­cial booths sell main­ly In­di­an clothes, footwear, jew­el­ry, ac­ces­sories, mu­sic, movies, fur­ni­ture, ap­pli­ances, and re­li­gious and house­hold items. In re­cent years, the Na­gar has al­so ac­com­mo­dat­ed an In­di­an Trade Fair. This is a flea mar­ket op­er­at­ed by about 25 busi­ness­men from In­dia.

The Na­gar hous­es about 150 tents, which in­clude com­mer­cial stalls, re­li­gious booths, me­dia hous­es and food kitchens. The kitchens-prepar­ing lo­cal, hot, on-the-spot In­di­an del­i­ca­cies-are the most pop­u­lar. Pep­per roti made on a chul­ha, in one of the food stalls, is ex­treme­ly de­light­ful. At the Na­gar, palmists and as­trol­o­gists are sought and con­sult­ed. Mehin­di artistes are in de­mand for dec­o­rat­ing the hands and palms of main­ly young women with artis­tic lines of paint. Itin­er­ant sales­men ped­dle cot­ton can­dies, bal­loons, glow sticks and toys. Hare Kr­ish­na per­form­ers in the court­yard draw the largest and youngest crowd out­side of the main stage due to their cap­ti­vat­ing ren­di­tions of kir­tans. They are well-known for con­gre­ga­tion­al singing, ec­sta­t­ic danc­ing, play­ing of mu­si­cal in­stru­ments, and the pub­lic chant­i­ng of God's names.

Each year, lo­cal the­atre groups per­form plays in the Bis­ram Gopie Sangeet Bha­van Au­di­to­ri­um at the Na­gar. Brave Heart Pro­duc­tions The­atre Com­pa­ny and the Princes Town The­atre Work­shop are two com­pa­nies that have act­ed on the small­er stage. It is per­haps the spec­ta­cle of fire­works on the last night of the week-long ex­trav­a­gansa which draws the largest crowd to the Na­gar. An es­ti­mat­ed 50,000 per­sons con­verge up­on the site to wit­ness the cre­ative ex­plo­sion of lights in the heav­ens that ap­pears like me­te­oric show­ers of ce­les­tial rain­drops. Es­tab­lished in 1986, the re­cep­tion to­wards the Di­vali Na­gar in T&T has been so tremen­dous that it has in­spired Hin­du theme parks and oth­er Na­gars in the rest of the world.

In 2005, Toron­to in Cana­da cel­e­brat­ed its first Di­vali Na­gar, fol­lowed by Flori­da in the USA in 2008. In 2005, Swami­na­yaran Ak­shard­ham in Del­hi in In­dia, es­tab­lished the sec­ond Hin­du theme park in the world. This year, plans are be­ing made by ISKON to con­struct a spir­i­tu­al theme park in Ban­ga­lore, In­dia.

The Na­gar is not the on­ly fair which blends the sa­cred and the sec­u­lar with en­ter­tain­ment. Lo­cat­ed close to Walt Dis­ney World, Uni­ver­sal Or­lan­do and Sea­World in Flori­da, is the Holy Land Ex­pe­ri­ence. Es­tab­lished in 2001, this Chris­t­ian theme park is a recre­ation of Jerusalem dur­ing Bib­li­cal times. In­stead of of­fer­ing wild rides, the park of­fers lec­tures and prayers which make the Holy Land ap­pear more like a church.