Shas­tri Boodan

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes says that the Di­vali Na­gar holds a spe­cial place in the hearts of many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.

She said so while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress on Tues­day night at the Di­vali Na­gar where the fi­nals of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) Dance Com­pe­ti­tion took place.

She said for the past three decades thou­sands of vis­i­tors to the Na­gar have been cap­ti­vat­ed by the dis­plays of colour, mu­sic and the mouth-wa­ter­ing aro­mas em­a­nat­ing from the site.

The Pres­i­dent said pa­trons have left vow­ing to re­turn and the do so every year and in her case, she vis­it­ed the Na­gar in 2018 and could not stay away this year.

She said the suc­cess of the Na­gar lies in its vivid rep­re­sen­ta­tion of lo­cal In­di­an cul­ture and all its el­e­ments and flavours that draw peo­ple like a mag­net time and time again.

The Pres­i­dent said the tra­di­tions of the In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty that came to T&T dur­ing the in­den­ture­ship pe­ri­od now ben­e­fit all na­tion­als.

She spoke of the sig­nif­i­cance of Di­vali as the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brate the re­turn of Lord Ra­ma from ex­ile.

She told the au­di­ence, “The tale of Lord Ra­ma’s ex­ile and tri­umphant re­turn is nar­rat­ed in the Ra­mayan, one of the largest epics in all of lit­er­a­ture. The sto­ry has been well pre­served and passed down over the mil­len­ni­um. Every school­child knows the sto­ry of Di­vali of Ram and Si­ta and the bless­ing of Moth­er Lak­sh­mi. The Ra­mayan is the one book in the di­verse se­lec­tion of the Hin­du Granth com­pris­ing thou­sands of years of re­li­gious thought and ad­vice. The Granth, like the Na­gar, is a repos­i­to­ry of cus­toms, val­ues and tra­di­tions.”

Weekes said next week she will speak at an in­ter­na­tion­al Ve­da con­fer­ence which is be­ing held in T&T where Vedic tech­nolo­gies would be looked at with the view of bring­ing peace and pros­per­i­ty to all.

The dance com­pe­ti­tion was won for the third straight year in a row by the Nritya Sangam Dance Group from St He­le­na.

They took home the top prize of $12,000 which was spon­sored by Gulf In­sur­ance.

Rishi Singh, the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er for the group, said the dance was a show of the male and fe­male as­pect of God in a state of uni­ty.

Singh said the dance took around 10 months to pre­pare, es­pe­cial­ly for the com­pe­ti­tion.

Plac­ing sec­ond was Priya Per­sad, who copped the $9,000 prize while in the third spot was Si­mone’s Dance Acad­e­my who got the $7,500 prize.

The con­test fea­tured 12 fi­nal­ists of which four were so­lo acts.