Shas­tri Boodan

Thou­sands of Hin­dus across T&T joined the glob­al Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate Shiv­ra­tri from Wednes­day night in­to Thurs­day morn­ing. The event en­cour­ages devo­tees to ho­n­our the Hin­du god Lord Shi­va with of­fer­ings of fruits, sweets, and milk. Hin­dus al­so use the oc­ca­sion to give to those in need.

SE­WA TT has sup­port­ed sev­er­al strug­gling fam­i­lies for near­ly ten years. Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed SE­WA TT dur­ing its ham­per dis­tri­b­u­tion at the Ajod­ha Road Mandir, Munroe Road, Ch­agua­nas.

Teelucks­ingh said SE­WA TT formed on a Shiv­ra­tri night in 2012. “Since then, we have con­tributed con­tin­u­ous­ly, vis­it­ing mandirs where peo­ple stay awake all night seek­ing help.”

He added that many or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als helped cre­ate 200 food pack­ages over the past month. SE­WA TT planned to vis­it 13 lo­ca­tions through­out the night.

Teelucks­ingh not­ed that every Shiv­ra­tri co­in­cides with the Car­ni­val sea­son. “It has grown sig­nif­i­cant­ly, and in some years, we have dis­trib­uted over 1,000 food pack­ages.”**