“A cul­ture sur­vives be­cause each gen­er­a­tion re­ceives it with re­spect and choos­es to hand it on. By tak­ing part in Ram­leela, you have joined a tra­di­tion prac­tised for cen­turies, and root­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go for well over one hun­dred years. You have helped pre­serve an im­por­tant part of our spir­i­tu­al and cul­tur­al in­her­i­tance.”

Her Ex­cel­len­cy,

Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo,

Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Last week I at­tend­ed Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions at Pierre Road and Mc Bean. I was en­thralled by the cre­ative and vi­brant per­for­mances at both lo­ca­tions. There was so much tal­ent on dis­play, from the cos­tume de­sign and sto­ry­telling to the act­ing, danc­ing and mu­sic.

Add to this the food and the re­li­gious as­pects of the cel­e­bra­tions and you will not run out of things to ap­pre­ci­ate. Both com­mu­ni­ties, as well as all the oth­er com­mu­ni­ties which held Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions, de­serve to be cel­e­brat­ed for the time, skill and ef­fort that went in­to these pro­duc­tions. We are def­i­nite­ly not lack­ing tal­ent­ed peo­ple on our lit­tle is­land.

What I es­pe­cial­ly loved at both venues was see­ing younger chil­dren giv­en a space to play along­side the more ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers. They were learn­ing from peo­ple who have been par­tic­i­pat­ing for years and who could guide them and be­come role mod­els with­in their own com­mu­ni­ties. Through this in­volve­ment, chil­dren have op­por­tu­ni­ties to take on re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, work with oth­ers and de­vel­op their con­fi­dence and lead­er­ship skills.

As a na­tion, this is what we need more of, to con­scious­ly en­cour­age com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties which en­gage our chil­dren from an ear­ly age. We need to give them op­por­tu­ni­ties to par­tic­i­pate while they are still learn­ing so that they will grow up in it, proud of it and com­mit­ted to it.

What al­so stood out for me was how many peo­ple helped to make the cel­e­bra­tions pos­si­ble. Vil­lagers gave their time, shared their skills and con­tributed funds.

At the Pierre Road venue, the list of peo­ple who had helped seemed end­less but every­one was ac­knowl­edged for their con­tri­bu­tion. I loved that. It showed just how much goes in­to putting on Ram­leela and how many peo­ple are will­ing to do their part.

Those work­ing be­hind the scenes de­serve recog­ni­tion too. Their ef­forts make it pos­si­ble for the per­form­ers to take the field and for the wider com­mu­ni­ty to en­joy the cel­e­bra­tions. It made me think about how much we can achieve when peo­ple with­in a com­mu­ni­ty sup­port each oth­er.

There is so much that these vil­lage cel­e­bra­tions can teach us as a coun­try. We tend to fo­cus on na­tion­al events but we al­so need to think about what is hap­pen­ing with­in our com­mu­ni­ties.

Ac­tiv­i­ties like Ram­leela, tak­ing place in com­mu­ni­ties through­out the coun­try, have an im­por­tant role to play in our na­tion’s de­vel­op­ment. With Ram­leela, when old­er peo­ple pass on their knowl­edge and chil­dren have adults to guide them, we are de­vel­op­ing our peo­ple.

When res­i­dents take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for or­gan­is­ing an event we are see­ing lo­cal lead­er­ship in prac­tice. These are things we should val­ue and sup­port through­out the year. Ram­leela shows us that our vil­lages al­ready have peo­ple with the skills and com­mit­ment to do this work.

Yet I feel that we have tak­en, and con­tin­ue to take Ram­leela for grant­ed. It is such an im­por­tant part of our na­tion­al cul­tur­al land­scape but so many cit­i­zens know lit­tle about it or un­der­stand its im­por­tance. This year, I was hap­py to hear about Bmo­bile spon­sor­ship for some of the groups, an­nounced by the gov­ern­ment.

I wel­come that sup­port be­cause many of these Ram­leela groups de­pend heav­i­ly on fundrais­ing and pub­lic do­na­tions to meet their ex­pens­es. I think that their de­ter­mi­na­tion to con­tin­ue de­spite the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges says a lot about their re­silience and ded­i­ca­tion. We al­so need to recog­nise the de­mands this places on them and give them re­li­able sup­port to plan ahead and sus­tain their work.

I al­so feel that our Hin­du her­itage is one part of our cul­tur­al land­scape that we have not de­vel­oped enough in terms of her­itage tourism.

Ram­leela, with its free, open-air per­for­mances in com­mu­ni­ties across T&T, gives us so much to work with. We can do more to pro­mote the dif­fer­ent venues and help lo­cal and over­seas vis­i­tors un­der­stand the his­to­ry and re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance of what they are see­ing.

A shared cal­en­dar, ex­ten­sive me­dia cov­er­age, clear di­rec­tions and in­for­ma­tion about each pro­duc­tion would be a use­ful start. Of course, any ef­fort to pack­age and mar­ket Ram­leela must in­volve the vil­lagers and en­sure that the ben­e­fits reach them. They have kept these cel­e­bra­tions go­ing and must have a say in how we build on them.

As we pre­pare to cel­e­brate Di­vali, I hope we will give more thought to the peo­ple who keep these tra­di­tions alive. We can at­tend their pro­duc­tions, con­tribute to their fundrais­ing and en­cour­age our chil­dren to get in­volved. Gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate spon­sors can help with fund­ing, main­tain­ing fa­cil­i­ties and on­go­ing train­ing.

The com­mu­ni­ties at Pierre Road, Mc Bean and across T&T have shown their com­mit­ment year af­ter year. Ram­leela has sur­vived since the 1800s be­cause gen­er­a­tions of vil­lagers have ded­i­cat­ed them­selves to keep­ing it alive. Imag­ine how much more it can grow if we make it a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.