Gillian Cal­iste

From the pro­ces­sion of chil­dren who car­ried the mur­ti of Moth­er Lak­sh­mi in­to its gates on the first open­ing night and the woman and her daugh­ters who sewed the jhan­dis that would fly high to mark the oc­ca­sion, to the artistes who lent their tal­ent, the Di­vali Na­gar has al­ways been an ex­pres­sion of the peo­ple. Over the years, it has evolved as a sta­ple in the East In­di­an re­li­gious and cul­tur­al land­scape, a tes­ti­mo­ny to the pow­er of hard work, per­se­ver­ance and com­mu­ni­ty. Some could even say the suc­cess of the Na­gar has been a tri­umph of light over dark­ness.

To­mor­row, the coun­try ob­serves Di­vali, the fes­ti­val of lights, the tri­umph of light over dark­ness. Tonight, the usu­al nine days of cel­e­bra­tions at the Na­gar lead­ing up to Di­vali come to a close. Com­ment­ing that this Di­vali held spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance as the coun­try had sur­vived a tough time un­der the pan­dem­ic, Dhar­ma­charya of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) and the very first chair­man of the Di­vali Na­gar Dr Ram­per­sad Paras­ram told the Sun­day Guardian he was grate­ful for the re­turn to in-per­son ac­tiv­i­ties at the Na­gar which re­opened its gates on Oc­to­ber 15.

Sprawled across 15 acres at its Narsa­loo Ra­maya Marg Road, En­deav­our, Ch­agua­nas home, just off the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, the Di­vali Na­gar is a bustling com­mu­ni­ty of colours, flavours, rhythms and Hin­du arts, the heart­beat of East In­di­an cul­ture. Some­times called the “Vil­lage or City of Lights”, it has been known to hosts crowds of close to 200,000 over its an­nu­al nine days and nights of re­li­gious and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties lead­ing up to Di­vali.

At once an in­sti­tu­tion and a mar­ket­place, its food, cloth­ing and cor­po­rate booths, and stalls sell­ing just about every­thing un­der the sun are a hub of com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty, dri­ving its very ex­is­tence. Its main build­ing hous­es the Bis­ram Gopie Sangeet Bha­van Au­di­to­ri­um where many of the cul­tur­al per­for­mances take place and there is al­so a Her­itage Cen­tre for archives on the sec­ond floor. The Na­gar and its nu­mer­ous year-round events are man­aged by the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC).

Re­flect­ing on the evo­lu­tion of the Na­gar, Paras­ram said it took the minds, hands and hearts of many to help move then-pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture Dr Hans Hanoomans­ingh's vi­sion of es­tab­lish­ing a “vil­lage” or “na­gar” to high­light all as­pects of East In­di­an cul­tur­al tra­di­tions from a meet­ing at his Am­ral's Trav­el of­fice in Ch­agua­nas 36 years ago, in­to the largest Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion out­side of In­dia, and a mod­el fol­lowed by the In­di­an di­as­po­ra in oth­er parts of the world.

“It (the Na­gar) was in­tend­ed for peo­ple to ex­press them­selves and to show­case their cul­ture from 1845 to then in 1986,” Paras­ram ex­plained.

Re­call­ing that peo­ple like the cur­rent Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) Dr De­ok­i­nanan Shar­ma were al­so part of the NCIC founders of the Na­gar, Paras­ram said they start­ed from “ze­ro” and had to or­gan­ise hu­man re­sources, fi­nances and in­fra­struc­ture to trans­late Hanoomans­ingh's con­cept in­to some­thing tan­gi­ble.

“We had to de­pend on the gen­eros­i­ty of the Seereer­am Broth­ers, Mr Sham Seereer­am, for their Mid Cen­tre Mall park­ing lot. It meant hav­ing peo­ple go out to talk to peo­ple to get them on board, and then reach out to cul­tur­al ac­tivists and oth­ers to get the project go­ing. I think there was no sup­port from the state at that time, what­ev­er we got was from the gen­eros­i­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty. Of course, we did have booths as we do now, but we had lim­it­ed space as op­posed to the space that is now avail­able,” Paras­ram said.

On the open­ing night at the very first Di­vali Na­gar at the Mid Cen­tre Mall car park on Oc­to­ber 26, 1986, he felt they ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions. While the man­age­ment team had ex­pect­ed around 10,000 peo­ple, throb­bing crowds es­ti­mat­ed at over 20,000 showed up, the for­mer Na­gar Chair­man re­called. The of­fi­cial pro­gramme start­ed with the light­ing of the first deya by then-Dhar­ma­charya Pun­dit Kr­ish­na Ma­haraj and in­clud­ed ad­dress­es by Hanoomans­ingh and Paras­ram, as well as, clas­si­cal singing, and per­for­mances by an In­di­an or­ches­tra, and a tas­sa group.

Paras­ram said one high point of the ini­tial open­ing in 1986 was a per­for­mance by renowned In­di­an Hin­du de­vo­tion­al singer Hari Om Sha­ran and his wife, Nan­di­ni Sha­ran. But what re­al­ly im­pact­ed him was the pa­rade of school chil­dren car­ry­ing the mur­ti of Moth­er Lak­sh­mi built in En­deav­our Vil­lage who en­tered the site, ac­com­pa­nied by the pul­sat­ing rhythms of tas­sa drums and a sea of jhan­dis (Hin­du flags) to open the night's pro­ceed­ings.

“It was a sight to be­hold be­cause at that time when they made their way in­to the grounds, Dr. Hanoomans­ingh and I were on stage and quite hon­est­ly, with the crowd as well, it was be­yond my ex­pec­ta­tions. It was a very mov­ing and touch­ing mo­ment for me,” he said.

He re­count­ed oth­er mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ences lead­ing up to the open­ing like in­ter­act­ing with peo­ple every day across the coun­try who were work­ing to make the event ma­te­ri­alise. Work­ing with young men who laboured late in­to the night to per­fect the arch at the en­trance, the artist who had vol­un­teered and worked tire­less­ly cre­at­ing the back­drop for the stage and oth­er art­work, the la­dy and her daugh­ters who stitched all the jhan­dis need­ed whom he called the un­sung he­roes all left an in­deli­ble im­pres­sion on him.

He said though there were de­trac­tors who did not be­lieve it would hap­pen, he was grate­ful for all the op­ti­mists who made things ma­te­ri­alise.

Brought to Trinidad and To­ba­go by in­den­tured labour­ers in 1845, tra­di­tion­al­ly, Di­vali had been cel­e­brat­ed in homes and com­mu­ni­ties. It be­came a pub­lic hol­i­day in 1966 af­ter lob­by­ing by then-pres­i­dent of the SDMS and civ­il rights leader and trade union­ist Bhadase Sagan Maraj and oth­ers. The es­tab­lish­ment of the Na­gar el­e­vat­ed the fes­ti­val from small­er, sep­a­rate spaces to the na­tion­al stage where oth­ers could see, learn and par­tic­i­pate.

Since its in­cep­tion, the Na­gar has wel­comed the par­tic­i­pa­tion of peo­ple from the Caribbean and In­di­an di­as­po­ra world­wide which added new di­men­sions to the cel­e­bra­tions, Paras­ram said. He was hap­py to see the for­mat be­ing em­braced in places like South Flori­da and New York over the years.

“It's good to see the growth of some­thing good; that peo­ple ex­press them­selves through these cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties wher­ev­er they are set­tled and it makes me feel good that we did some­thing worth re­mem­ber­ing, some­thing that has made a pos­i­tive im­pact on the lives of peo­ple,” he said.

Al­though Paras­ram was un­able to hold the post of Na­gar chair­man for very long due to his oth­er roles of psy­chi­a­trist, civ­il ser­vant, politi­cian, pun­dit, Pres­i­dent of the Men­tal Health As­so­ci­a­tion etc, at the time, he said he had al­ways cher­ished be­ing part of the founders and be­ing in­volved in cel­e­bra­tions over the years.

Asked whether he felt sat­is­fied that the Di­vali Na­gar had achieved the NCIC's main goals of pre­serv­ing East In­di­an cul­ture and In­do-Trinida­di­an cul­ture, the spir­i­tu­al leader quot­ed part of the orig­i­nal aim of the Na­gar from the pro­gramme of the ini­tial open­ing of the Na­gar 36 years ago, say­ing that would have to be used as a bench­mark to de­cide:

“...to re­flect the rich­ness of East In­di­an cul­ture and its rel­e­vance to to­day's chal­lenges and crises, trace the dy­nam­ic ways and de­ter­mi­na­tion of a peo­ple to over­come, eco­nom­ic, psy­cho­log­i­cal and colo­nial pres­sures,” he read, adding that he hoped that the tra­di­tion of the Na­gar would con­tin­ue in­to the fu­ture, ever re-in­vent­ing it­self to meet the needs of the pop­u­la­tion.

Com­ing from a fam­i­ly of pun­dits prepar­ing for Di­vali at home was al­so very spe­cial to them. He said the NCIC had to bal­ance the re­li­gious, cul­tur­al as­pects of Hin­du and East In­di­an cul­ture. Added to the mix were the com­mer­cial booths. He said stip­u­la­tions like hav­ing no meat or al­co­hol on the com­pound, and des­ig­nat­ing a spe­cif­ic place for the chant­i­ng of de­vo­tion­al songs helped.

“And that still holds up to now. I am hap­py to say that peo­ple recog­nised the sanc­ti­ty of the oc­ca­sion. And in my rec­ol­lec­tion, there was nev­er an un­to­ward in­ci­dent,” he said.

“It's been a good jour­ney. It's had its chal­lenges and we will al­ways have chal­lenges, I sup­pose. But it is the will to over­come those chal­lenges and to ex­press our­selves in a sig­nif­i­cant way and that in it­self is sat­is­fy­ing.”

De­scrib­ing the Na­gar as a “brand” that had been built over 36 years, NCIC Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo told Sun­day Guardian in his 23 years of be­ing part of the man­age­ment of the Di­vali Na­gar, the in­sti­tu­tion has seen struc­tur­al growth and in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment and has be­come a “vil­lage” that in­cludes every­one.

Apart from cre­at­ing em­ploy­ment for many in­clud­ing con­struc­tion work­ers, elec­tri­cians and plumbers who are on call over the nine days, Man­ga­roo said the event cre­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for young artists.

An an­nu­al dance com­pe­ti­tion, a youth champ con­test that fea­tures in­stru­ments and songs, and a queen pageant were all part of this, he said, adding that folk tra­di­tions were al­so a big at­trac­tion for youths. For a num­ber of years, com­pe­ti­tions have been open to peo­ple of the In­di­an di­as­po­ra, and nu­mer­ous peo­ple from Cana­da, Nether­lands, Be­lize, Suri­name. The first queen pageant was won by a Ja­maican in 2016. He said the Na­gar re­flects T&T cul­ture as a whole as it has recog­nised the steel pan as this coun­try's na­tion­al in­stru­ment and it has been used in ren­di­tions of bha­jans (Hin­du re­li­gious songs). He said pan­nists who were non-Hin­du have al­so ap­peared at Na­gar shows.

“We (NCIC) have tak­en the pan to Ja­maica many years ago with Shiv­an­na Ra­goo­nanan (pan­nist). We are tak­ing a pan­nist to Suri­name next month,” he in­formed.

“If you look at Di­vali Na­gar over the years, it's an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the com­mu­ni­ty to get to­geth­er for ac­tiv­i­ties. We have so many NGOs, and re­li­gious, cul­tur­al events. We have the ex­hi­bi­tion, apart from the booths and so, the food booth is a hit year af­ter year. It gives an op­por­tu­ni­ty for all com­mu­ni­ties to come and con­verge on one ground, talk, have a good time, taste the dif­fer­ent va­ri­eties of the culi­nary de­lights that are avail­able; all veg­e­tar­i­an and non-al­co­holic.”

The in­no­va­tions of culi­nary artists who of­fer food for sale at the Na­gar have al­so been part of the Na­gar's evo­lu­tion. Along with such tra­di­tion­al East In­di­an fare as roti made on the spot on chul­has, dou­bles, pholourie, chut­neys, chokas, pa­neer, cane juice, chai bev­er­ages and sweets like barfi, khur­ma, ladoo, gu­lab jamoon, there have been new takes on the old like barfi ice-cream, cook­ies 'n cream and oth­er flavour­ings of barfi, pa­neer wraps and pa­neer burg­ers and spinach pholourie. New trends like the In­do-Chi­nese Hak­ka noo­dles, pep­per fries, masala fries, and chataigne nuggets have al­so emerged over the years. A best sell­er is the vari­a­tion of paratha called pep­per roti with its fiery pota­to and car­rot fill­ing.

Among the oth­er on­go­ing ac­tiv­i­ties at the Na­gar is the Her­itage Cen­tre at the main build­ing was start­ed about five years ago to archive East In­di­an ma­te­r­i­al. Un­der the chair­man­ship of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemal, NCIC's first VP, the goal is to dig­i­tal­ly archive pieces of his­to­ry – books, paint­ings, au­dio dig­i­tal ma­te­r­i­al – so stu­dents at all lev­els can use them for their re­search.

Dur­ing the year, the venue is rent­ed out for events like sem­i­nars and wed­dings, and it is al­so used for larg­er fes­tiv­i­ties such as In­di­an Ar­rival Day. Man­ga­roo who is al­so Char­ter pres­i­dent of the Ro­tary Club of Pe­nal and chair­man of the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help in 1999 said man­age­ment makes the venue avail­able for char­i­ta­ble and oth­er oc­ca­sions–to ad­min­is­ter vac­cines at the height of COVID and for cloth­ing dri­ves.

Man­ga­roo re­called that the Na­gar site was orig­i­nal­ly giv­en to the NCIC by the min­is­ter of plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment un­der the NAR Win­ston Dook­er­an, and it first opened in 1987.

“We had to re­de­vel­op that site. A lot of work went in­to it. We had to build a tem­po­rary stage with scaf­fold­ing. When rain fell, most of the time you wor­ried be­cause it would wet the stage, in­stru­ments and what have you. But we have over­come all of that. We built a per­ma­nent struc­ture. That took a lot of ef­fort and time and we are grate­ful to our cor­po­rate spon­sors – some of whom do not want to be iden­ti­fied – those who do­nat­ed bricks, gal­vanise, ma­te­r­i­al and that is how we are here to­day,” he said, adding that bMo­bile had been a con­sis­tent spon­sor over the years.

Man­ga­roo said be­cause of the short time to plan for this year in the pan­dem­ic's af­ter­math, the fes­tiv­i­ties saw sole­ly lo­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion but larg­er cel­e­bra­tions would re­sume next year. With re­spect to out­go­ing NCIC Pres­i­dent Shar­ma, Man­ga­roo said Shar­ma had de­vot­ed 55 years of his life to the or­gan­i­sa­tion and de­spite the changes that may come, many young peo­ple had been work­ing with them for years and as a re­sult, the con­tin­u­a­tion of the tra­di­tions was in good hands.