RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

De­spite cloudy skies, Di­vali night un­fold­ed in a kalei­do­scope of lights and tra­di­tions in the serene com­mu­ni­ties of Pe­nal and Debe.

How­ev­er, Rail­way Road West, which usu­al­ly trans­forms in­to a bam­boo-de­signed spec­ta­cle, was de­void of this tra­di­tion this year. De­spite this, the youths of the com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ued to em­brace the age-old cus­tom of bam­boo burst­ing.

Res­i­dent Reaaz Ho­sein, amidst the crack­ling bursts, con­fessed, “We had planned to light up the whole street with bam­boo, but we just couldn’t do it this year, so we’re do­ing the usu­al in­stead—burst­ing bam­boo.”

Most of the homes around Rail­way Road were adorned with flick­er­ing deyas.

How­ev­er, as the rains in­creased in in­ten­si­ty, Ho­sein and his friends had no choice but to cov­er up the bam­boo canons and run for shel­ter.

Mean­while, the usu­al­ly bustling SS Erin Road was de­void of traf­fic on Di­vali night.

Kerice Mallineau, of Palmiste, and her friends cre­at­ed their own spec­ta­cle, light­ing deyas along the al­most de­sert­ed main road. A group of res­i­dents re­placed the tra­di­tion­al deyas for the dra­mat­ic al­lure of burn­ing flam­beaus.

One res­i­dent said, “This is how we do the light-up here. It’s flam­beau we’re light­ing. Deya oil is too ex­pen­sive.”

At Pun­dit Street, Debe, free In­di­an del­i­ca­cies were be­ing dis­trib­uted by Pun­dit Ra­jesh Ram­per­sad-Tewarie and his fam­i­ly. Welling­ton Road res­i­dents al­so shared treats with passers-by, yet the streets, un­like pre­vi­ous years, lacked the usu­al hus­tle and bus­tle, with few­er bam­boo de­signs in sight.

Mo­hess Road took a mod­ern twist, as PVC pipes re­placed tra­di­tion­al bam­boo, guid­ing the way to a house adorned not with deyas, but with a daz­zling ar­ray of elec­tri­cal bulbs.

Gopie Trace, too, de­vi­at­ed from the norm, as res­i­dents opt­ed for the sim­plic­i­ty of deyas on ve­ran­dahs, dri­ve­ways, and bal­conies over elab­o­rate bam­boo de­signs.

Fur­ther down the street, near the Debe Quik Shoppe, Amisha Man­lal and Am­ri­ta Gun­ness-Per­sad of Debe lit deyas on a ta­ble set up along the SS Erin Road, Debe.

While Di­vali was dis­mal in Debe, oth­er ar­eas con­tin­ued the tra­di­tions of yes­ter­years. At Jaipauls­ingh Road Princes Town, elab­o­rate bam­boo de­signs adorned with deyas ush­ered in the Di­vali spir­it.

How­ev­er, at Pluck Road, Wood­land, res­i­dents al­so ex­pe­ri­enced a dis­mal Di­vali night, say­ing the lack of pipe-borne wa­ter af­fect­ed their fes­tiv­i­ties.