Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Spir­i­tu­al leader of the Jai Kali Maa Mandir in Car­li Bay, Cou­va, Pan­di­ta Don­na Ram­cha­ran, ap­pealed for more re­li­gious tol­er­ance in T&T and urged cit­i­zens to seek un­der­stand­ing in­stead of re­act­ing with fear or prej­u­dice to­ward un­fa­mil­iar re­li­gious prac­tices, par­tic­u­lar­ly Hin­duism.

She made the ap­peal fol­low­ing the in­stal­la­tion of two new life-sized mur­tis at the mandir on Sat­ur­day. The orig­i­nal mur­tis were de­stroyed when the tem­ple was des­e­crat­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2023, part of a trou­bling pat­tern of van­dal­ism tar­get­ing Hin­du places of wor­ship.

“This is hap­pen­ing be­cause peo­ple don’t un­der­stand Hin­duism—and even more so, Shak­tism,” she said.

“They don’t un­der­stand our di­vine moth­er Kali De­vi. When peo­ple turn a blind eye, they end up in­ter­fer­ing, van­dal­iz­ing, and do­ing things that are just wrong. In­stead of de­stroy­ing, why not ask ques­tions? Come and find out who she is. Kali is our Vir­gin Mary, our moth­er.”

Shak­tism fo­cus­es on the wor­ship of the Di­vine Moth­er, known as Shak­ti or De­vi. Kali, a revered god­dess in the Hin­du tra­di­tion.

“I am call­ing for more re­li­gious tol­er­ance in this coun­try—not just here in Car­li Bay, but across T&T,” Pan­di­ta Ram­cha­ran added.

The new mur­tis, rep­re­sent­ing Kali and Rad­ha Kr­ish­na, were craft­ed by ar­ti­san Ku­bir Ben­ny.

They were col­lect­ed Sat­ur­day morn­ing in Brick­field Vil­lage and trans­port­ed to the tem­ple in a four-hour pro­ces­sion with stops at Wa­ter­loo, Freeport, Preysal, and Bal­main.

The Pan­di­ta said de­vo­tion to Kali is grow­ing world­wide, as more peo­ple con­nect with the god­dess’s mes­sage of em­pow­er­ment and pro­tec­tion.