RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With hands clasped and deyas lit, devo­tees of the Sad­hu Mandir in Bar­rack­pore came out on Di­vali morn­ing to beg the Gov­ern­ment to save their tem­ple which con­tin­ues to slip in­to a riv­er.

Just a year ago, the riv­er had been 50 feet away from the tem­ple grounds, but now it is less than 20 feet away.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, events co­or­di­na­tor of the mandir, Dhanesh Maraj said since dredg­ing was done ear­li­er this year, mas­sive ero­sion be­gan, caus­ing the back por­tion of the tem­ple to crack. The wash­room has top­pled and mas­sive chunks of dirt con­tin­ue to fall in­to the riv­er dai­ly.

Ex­press­ing fears that they would lose their beloved mandir, Maraj said over 500 peo­ple ben­e­fit from the tem­ple’s ac­tiv­i­ties.

He said apart from de­vo­tion­al wor­ship, the tem­ple is used as a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

“The Bol­ly­wood Dance Com­pa­ny op­er­ates from the mandir train­ing 50-plus stu­dents in dance and mu­sic,” he added, not­ing that Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Dra­ma Group, Un­der the Man­go Tree Pro­duc­tions, is based in the tem­ple.

Maraj said reg­u­lar mu­sic class­es, dra­ma class­es, tas­sa drum­ming class­es and teach­ing of the har­mo­ni­um, dho­lak and oth­er mu­si­cal in­stru­ments are held at the tem­ple.

“We are very ac­tive and well-known. We do a range of char­i­ty events and three times per week we hold fundrais­ers be­cause we want to ex­pand our op­er­a­tions. But now that the tem­ple is threat­ened we do not know what to do,” he said.

Maraj said they al­ready spent $60,000 to ren­o­vate the mandir but all restora­tive works have ceased since the ero­sion es­ca­lat­ed.

Sta­cy Ba­booram, an ac­tress from Un­der the Man­go Tree Pro­duc­tions, said many youths will suf­fer if the tem­ple is de­stroyed.

“We come here dai­ly. Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, we gave out over 1,000 ham­pers to the un­der­priv­i­leged. We help Hin­dus and non-Hin­dus. For Di­vali, we gave away food and drinks. We do a lot for the com­mu­ni­ty and we are count­ing on the gov­ern­ment to help us be­cause we need to have this tem­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty,” she said.

Trea­sur­er of the tem­ple Kishore Sookoo said they have been li­ais­ing with the Min­istry of Works Drainage Di­vi­sion, hop­ing to get some re­lief.

He said con­trac­tors who sup­port the tem­ple are on stand­by to as­sist. “We want per­mis­sion to di­vert the riv­er away from the mandir and cut a new chan­nel that will straight­en the riv­er,” he added.

Sookoo said once the min­istry pro­vides the tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise, they will pro­vide the labour.

Say­ing the mandir is a spe­cial in­sti­tu­tion in the vil­lage, Sookoo said many lives will be ad­verse­ly im­pact­ed if the tem­ple fell in­to the riv­er.

“We are hop­ing that it will not come to this. This is why we are call­ing for in­ter­ven­tion now,” he added.

Mandy Seenath, who lives next to the mandir, said the back por­tion of her house has start­ed to crack be­cause of the ero­sion.

She said: “It is hard now to even think of re­build­ing a house. Every­one is fac­ing a dif­fi­cult time now and we are call­ing on the min­istry to help us stop this ero­sion so we will not lose the tem­ple and our homes,’ she said.

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan vis­it­ed the mandir on Mon­day and spoke with the res­i­dents.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Sinanan said di­vert­ing the South Oropouche Riv­er was not an op­tion as this will cre­ate dev­as­ta­tion down­stream.

He al­so said a re­tain­ing wall will not work as the riv­er will un­der­mine the wall be­cause of the ex­ist­ing slope.

Sinanan said his team of en­gi­neers will li­aise with the tem­ple devo­tees to come up with a way to pre­serve the tem­ple.