"The best way you can show grat­i­tude to the an­ces­tors is to up­hold their tra­di­tions and main­tain the val­ues they stood for!" This was the sharp yet prac­ti­cal ad­vice giv­en by spir­i­tu­al head of Swa­ha Para­macharya, Pun­dit Hard­eo Per­sad, as he ad­dressed the au­di­ence at the Swadeshi Awards cer­e­mo­ny, mark­ing Swa­ha's In­di­an Ar­rival day cel­e­bra­tions on June 6. Swa­ha's Swadeshi fes­ti­val, a month-long cel­e­bra­tion of train­ing, work­shops and com­pe­ti­tion, held its cul­mi­nat­ing event on In­di­an Ar­rival Day at UWI's JFK Lec­ture The­atre. This awards cer­e­mo­ny fea­tured a va­ri­ety of pre­sen­ta­tions by win­ners, guest artistes, ad­dress­es and the dis­tri­b­u­tion of prizes. The word "swadeshi" it­self refers to one's own coun­try or "in­dige­nous" and, in­deed, the tal­ent of the land dis­played that evening proved, be­yond a doubt, that Trinidad-desh (the land of Trinidad) has no dearth of artis­tic tal­ent.

Mu­si­cal­ly fea­tured on the evening's pro­gramme were lo­cal songs, dance and a scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mance by the Swa­ha Hin­du Col­lege's steel­pan group. This item saw the per­fect blend of the har­mo­ni­um, dhan­tal and dho­lak with the steel­pan and bon­go drums. Their mu­si­cal ren­di­tion drew sus­tained ap­plause by all present, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, her hus­band Dr Gre­go­ry Bisses­sar, Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Her­bert Vol­ney, and Mun­gal Patasar, renown sitarist. Out­stand­ing per­for­mances were al­so giv­en by Patasar, as well as Prof Pt Prakash Per­sad, who demon­strat­ed the use of the ro­bot­ic tabla, his own in­ven­tion. The taals of this me­chan­i­cal tabla pro­vid­ed ac­com­pa­ni­ment to the vo­cal ren­di­tion that was done on stage. Ad­dress­ing the packed hall, Para­macharya­ji urged all present to main­tain the val­ues and pre­serve the tra­di­tions that the an­ces­tors stood for.

Val­ues of truth, in­ner and out­er clean­li­ness, com­pas­sion and char­i­ty were the pil­lars that they laid for sus­te­nance and evo­lu­tion, he said, adding that the con­tin­ued build­ing up­on those foun­da­tion blocks was the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of their de­scen­dants. He said such a task could on­ly be achieved through dai­ly prac­tice and prop­a­ga­tion of those tra­di­tions, and he re­mind­ed every­one that al­though we all lived in a chang­ing and dy­nam­ic world, our val­ues should nev­er be com­pro­mised. In­stead, he ad­mon­ished they should re­main con­stant­ly alive and fresh with­in us, like a new dawn. One of the high­lights of the evening's cer­e­mo­ny was the ho­n­our­ing of the Prime Min­is­ter by Swa­ha.

In recog­ni­tion of her ded­i­ca­tion and ster­ling con­tri­bu­tion to the ser­vice of the na­tion's peo­ple, Para­macharya­ji pre­sent­ed her with a plaque on be­half of Swa­ha. In de­liv­er­ing a trib­ute to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Aar­tie Per­sad said her years as a politi­cian and her as­cen­dan­cy to her present po­si­tion could be at­trib­uted main­ly to her be­lief that noth­ing great could ever be achieved with­out en­dur­ing. All the firsts she achieved, con­tin­ued Per­sad, were on­ly through her many tests of en­durance. In her ad­dress, the Prime Min­is­ter com­mend­ed Swa­ha for the work it was do­ing on the na­tion­al so­ci­etal land­scape. She ded­i­cat­ed her award of ho­n­our to the in­den­ture­ship women who es­caped from a des­tiny of hard­ship. To the strains of Hin­du Lo­go Jaa­go (Wake up O Hin­dus), Swa­ha brought down the cur­tains on yet an­oth­er In­di­an Ar­rival cel­e­bra­tion.