Shas­tri Boodan

Rayan Ra­moutar is one woman who is def­i­nite­ly go­ing places. Ra­moutar is the new­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Hin­du So­ci­ety (THS). Since tak­ing up the man­tle ear­li­er this year, Ra­moutar has been tak­ing the lead in the THS' thrust to get a tem­ple built on the is­land. Last Sat­ur­day at the THS's an­nu­al Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in Low­lands, Orville Lon­don, the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, gave To­ba­go's Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty the good news that the land for the tem­ple was be­ing sur­veyed and a deed would soon be pre­pared. Ra­moutar said, "We in To­ba­go have strug­gled for years for a tem­ple in To­ba­go. The bat­tle start­ed with Ms Pearl Beepath, our trea­sur­er and im­me­di­ate past pres­i­dent. "A tem­ple on the is­land would add some lev­el of iden­ti­ty and act as a uni­fy­ing force for us here in To­ba­go. Our num­bers on the sis­ter is­land are small but we are strong."

Ra­moutar's love af­fair with To­ba­go start­ed three years ago when she re­lo­cat­ed from her home in Bras­so Ve­na­do in Cen­tral, to work as co-or­di­na­tor of the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre (NESC) there. She is the hold­er of a mas­ter's de­gree in food sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy (UWI) and is now the co-or­di­na­tor for To­ba­go with the Na­tion­al Train­ing Agency. She plans on study­ing for her doc­tor­ate soon. Ra­moutar said un­der her watch, one of the key thrusts of the THS would be to ed­u­cate the peo­ple. "Ed­u­ca­tion is the key to em­pow­er­ment. Women es­pe­cial­ly should take an ac­tive role in em­pow­er­ing them­selves through ed­u­ca­tion and en­sur­ing that they and their chil­dren get the max­i­mum ben­e­fit that our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem has to of­fer," she said.

"The THS plans to take on an ed­u­ca­tion­al role that would not on­ly ben­e­fit its mem­bers, but the wider com­mu­ni­ty. We do not live in a vac­u­um, what­ev­er we do we want to en­sure that the wider com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fits." Ra­moutar said the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion, un­der the present High Com­mis­sion­er, Malay Mishra, has of­fered sev­er­al schol­ar­ships to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and the THS. They have al­so start­ed class­es in tabla and vo­cals at the Calder Hall Com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre with tu­tors from the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co-op­er­a­tion. Ra­moutar said the class­es are open for all To­bag­o­ni­ans, and sev­er­al have al­ready in­di­cat­ed their in­ter­est to learn Hin­di.

Proud Hin­du woman

Proud to be a Hin­du woman, Ra­moutar said she was not afraid of pro­mot­ing and prop­a­gat­ing her cul­ture. "It hurts me deeply to see some­one ashamed of their cul­ture, our cul­ture...the cul­ture of our an­ces­tors who ar­rived here so many years ago rep­re­sents our her­itage; it says who we are, we can­not find true iden­ti­ty by adopt­ing the ways of oth­ers. "The eth­no­cen­tric ideals that were prop­a­gat­ed dur­ing the slav­ery and in­den­ture­ship pe­ri­od has sought to in­still a sense of shame in­to our peo­ple." Ac­cord­ing to Ra­moutar, to re­verse this comes on­ly from ed­u­ca­tion and on­ly from be­ing proud of who we are.

"I am not ashamed to wear a sari and at­tend a func­tion, it says who I am and sends a clear mes­sage." Ra­moutar said she was al­so con­cerned about crime on the sis­ter is­land. "Crime has an ug­ly face. Six­ty per cent of To­ba­go's econ­o­my is based on tourism, an in­dus­try that will out­last pe­tro­le­um, but crime has slipped in­to To­ba­go and cre­at­ed hav­oc. "We had the chop­ping of the British cou­ple, the dou­ble mur­der of two youth at French Fort. A long-term plan has to be drawn up to deal with crime be­fore this dis­ease spreads and be­come un­solv­able." Ra­moutar be­lieves that par­ents play an in­te­gral role in pre­vent­ing crime.

"It starts at home by be­ing a good role mod­el to our chil­dren, and when we go out we act as a bet­ter role mod­el to the chil­dren of our com­mu­ni­ty. We can­not let chil­dren slip through the cracks, this is T&T, our coun­try, and we have to be pa­tri­ot­ic de­spite our dif­fer­ences. At the end of the day, this is our coun­try." Ra­moutar said in 2010 the THS plans on cre­at­ing a Web site and in­creas­ing its mem­ber­ship dri­ve. "We are a part of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha. They are our gov­ern­ing body who have sup­port­ed us im­mense­ly in the past, and next year we look to them for some lev­el of guid­ance as we take a new path in the new year."

Good news:

Orville Lon­don, the Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, gave To­ba­go's Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty the good news that the land for the tem­ple was be­ing sur­veyed and a deed would soon be pre­pared.