As the coun­try pre­pares to en­ter the week of Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, one pun­dit is urg­ing cit­i­zens of T&T to look with­in for light, as well as so­lu­tions to many is­sues plagu­ing our so­ci­ety. 

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pun­dit Lutch­mi­dath Per­sad Ma­haraj said while cit­i­zens tend to point fin­gers at the coun­try’s lead­ers for is­sues such as do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and oth­er types of abuse, they ought to look with­in them­selves and their homes to start the change.

“We want to blame the politi­cians, we want to blame the po­lice, but some­times we have to be mind­ful of how we live and our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in en­sur­ing a sta­ble fam­i­ly unit. And this is where I think that we should re­al­ly fo­cus on Di­vali, and Di­vali’s fo­cus on the fam­i­ly,” he said.

He said al­though there are many fes­tiv­i­ties planned, Hin­dus and even non-Hin­dus in the na­tion, should use the Di­vali sea­son as a time to do some in­tro­spec­tion.

“We need to use this Di­vali, as a pe­ri­od of re­flec­tion to look at our­selves and to find some of the so­lu­tions with­in our own selves. How we teach our chil­dren by how we act and how we be­have… Every time you hear of crime, it is not com­mit­ted by peo­ple ex­ter­nal of Trinidad, it is with­in our own bor­ders from in­di­vid­u­als who are fa­thers, who are chil­dren, who are broth­ers, and who are sis­ters, so we need to take some re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” he added.

Ma­haraj said the ef­fects of fam­i­lies re­turn­ing to spir­i­tu­al­i­ty will be ev­i­dent in so­ci­ety.

“Let us grasp every op­por­tu­ni­ty to ed­u­cate our chil­dren on the right be­hav­iour and the right con­duct, and use our­selves as ex­am­ples to send on the out­side, to show what we want our com­mu­ni­ty and what we want our coun­try to be like,” he said.

He al­so re­mind­ed the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty to ab­stain from neg­a­tiv­i­ty as they fast for Di­vali.

He said, “What is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant is that dur­ing our pe­ri­od of fast­ing, we should keep our minds fo­cused and not be en­grossed in any kind of speech be­hav­iour, or con­duct that would cloud our abil­i­ty to think clear­ly. (We should) try to re­main calm and try to cul­ti­vate no­ble thoughts.”