H is­to­ry and tra­di­tion were the fo­cus of In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by the Hin­du Prachaar Kendra last Fri­day.

High­lights in­clud­ed a short his­tor­i­cal lec­ture by the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s pres­i­dent, Pun­di­ta Gee­ta Vahi­ni, who shared some facts about In­di­an in­den­ture­ship.

This year marks the 180th an­niver­sary of In­di­an Ar­rival, which be­gan with 225 East In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers be­ing brought to T&T on board the Fa­tel Raza­ck in 1845.

They left Kolkata, In­dia, for­mer­ly known as Cal­cut­ta, on Feb­ru­ary 23 and land­ed in Port-of-Spain on May 30.The av­er­age age of this first group of in­den­tured work­ers was 14.

From then un­til the ar­rival of the fi­nal group on board the Ganges on April 22, 1917, there were 318 such trips, bring­ing 144,000 in­den­tured labour­ers to T&T.

The Kendra cel­e­bra­tions in­clud­ed a dis­play of arte­facts brought to T&T by the East In­di­an in­den­tured labour­er, in­clud­ing the sil and lorha, stones used for grind­ing herbs and spices.

There was a demon­stra­tion by a Kendra mem­ber who still peesays (grinds) masala with a sil and lorha.

Oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ed a game of mu­si­cal peer­ha, fea­tur­ing the small wood­en bench­es used for var­i­ous pur­pos­es in East In­di­an homes such as cook­ing by the fire­side and as seats at Hin­du wed­dings.

There was al­so an item that is fa­mil­iar in most T&T house­holds, the jharu (co­coyea broom). Jharay, which is de­rived from this word, is a rit­u­al used for dri­ving away evil forces and bad luck.