Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

In the heart of Ch­agua­nas, where cul­tur­al mem­o­ry and artis­tic ex­pres­sion of­ten in­ter­sect, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) re­cent­ly trans­formed its Her­itage Cen­tre in­to a space of sto­ry­telling, re­flec­tion and lit­er­ary cel­e­bra­tion.

Held at the Hos­pi­tal­i­ty Lounge of the Bis­ram Gopie Sangeet Bha­van at the NCIC Na­gar on May 23, the book launch brought to­geth­er au­thors, cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers and mem­bers of the pub­lic for an af­ter­noon that placed In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian iden­ti­ty firm­ly at the cen­tre of the con­ver­sa­tion.

Three new pub­li­ca­tions took their place in the spot­light—Chanka Ma­haraj by Sat­nar­ine Balka­rans­ingh, Con­quer­ing 20 by Kav Par­tap and A Be­gin­ner’s Guide to Tas­sa Drums by Lenny Ku­mar—each of­fer­ing a dis­tinct lens on her­itage, re­silience and cul­tur­al preser­va­tion.

The event formed part of the NCIC’s on­go­ing com­mit­ment to safe­guard­ing In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian his­to­ry through lit­er­a­ture and ed­u­ca­tion, en­sur­ing that sto­ries of strug­gle, achieve­ment and tra­di­tion con­tin­ue to find new au­di­ences.

NCIC pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo de­scribed the launch as more than a lit­er­ary gath­er­ing, but rather a cel­e­bra­tion of courage, her­itage and com­mu­ni­ty mem­o­ry. He not­ed that each book re­flect­ed a dif­fer­ent di­men­sion of the In­do-Trin­bag­on­ian ex­pe­ri­ence, from per­son­al tri­umph and cul­tur­al preser­va­tion to bi­og­ra­phy and lived his­to­ry.

He added that sto­ry­telling re­mains one of the most pow­er­ful tools for pre­serv­ing iden­ti­ty and in­spir­ing fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, while reaf­firm­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s role in sup­port­ing writ­ers whose work con­tributes to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and cul­tur­al un­der­stand­ing.

Among the most per­son­al nar­ra­tives of the af­ter­noon was Con­quer­ing 20 by Kav Par­tap, a deeply re­flec­tive ac­count of her life with Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis. Her jour­ney, marked by ear­ly paral­y­sis at the age of 18, takes read­ers through two decades of re­silience, self-dis­cov­ery and al­ter­na­tive heal­ing.

By her own ac­count, Par­tap lat­er achieved what once seemed im­pos­si­ble, in­clud­ing climb­ing moun­tains by the age of 35, de­scrib­ing her life as one guid­ed by faith, de­ter­mi­na­tion and un­con­ven­tion­al paths to well­ness.

She ex­plained that over the past 20 years she had not re­lied on phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal treat­ments for Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis, in­stead turn­ing to nat­ur­al and re­gen­er­a­tive ap­proach­es along­side spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and re­silience.

“I be­lieved this jour­ney need­ed to be doc­u­ment­ed be­cause no one could tell my sto­ry the way I could,” she stat­ed.

For Par­tap, the book is not on­ly a per­son­al record, but a mes­sage of hope. She said it ex­plores themes of fam­i­ly, men­tal health, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and per­se­ver­ance, with the in­ten­tion of en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers fac­ing ill­ness or ad­ver­si­ty to be­lieve in the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bet­ter days.

An­oth­er key high­light was A Be­gin­ner’s Guide to Tas­sa Drums by vet­er­an mu­si­cian Lenny Ku­mar, a work ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing one of the re­gion’s most en­dur­ing mu­si­cal tra­di­tions. The pub­li­ca­tion seeks to for­malise the teach­ing of tas­sa at a time when oral tra­di­tions of in­struc­tion are grad­u­al­ly fad­ing.

In his au­thor’s note, Ku­mar re­flect­ed on more than 45 years as a pro­fes­sion­al drum­mer, thank­ing God for the “tal­ent, knowl­edge and pas­sion” that en­abled him to un­der­take the project.

“While this method has served tas­sa tra­di­tion for gen­er­a­tions, there is a need for more for­malised train­ing if tas­sa is to re­main true to its roots while pro­gress­ing and adapt­ing for the 21st cen­tu­ry and be­yond,” he stat­ed.

The evening al­so fea­tured Chanka Ma­haraj, a bi­og­ra­phy by Sat­nar­ine Balka­rans­ingh doc­u­ment­ing the life of Chanka Chan­dri­ka Ma­haraj, a fig­ure re­mem­bered for con­tri­bu­tions to sport, labour pol­i­tics, com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and phil­an­thropy.

Ac­cord­ing to the book, Ma­haraj rose from hum­ble be­gin­nings to be­come an ad­vo­cate for ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty, adult suf­frage, pen­sion re­form and cre­ma­tion rights, while al­so sup­port­ing In­di­an arts, lit­er­a­ture, mu­sic, dance and cui­sine.