Paras Ra­moutar

T&T has been se­lect­ed to host the World Ram­leela Coun­cil and Chair fol­low­ing the first ever In­ter­na­tion­al Ram­leela Con­fer­ence held Ju­ly 12 to 14 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine.Dr Prim­nath Goop­tar, chair­man, said the con­fer­ence was ful­ly sup­port­ed by the Na­tion­al Ram­leela Coun­cil, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion, the Min­istry of Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) and UWI.Theme of the con­fer­ence was Ram­leela In The Glob­al Vil­lage: Tra­di­tions, In­no­va­tions and Fu­ture Di­rec­tions. Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion Clin­ton De­Couteau de­liv­ered the open­ing ad­dress. "The ma­jor aim of the con­fer­ence was to pro­mote the con­cept of Ram­leela as a cul­tur­al her­itage not on­ly for Trinidad and To­ba­go, but in­ter­na­tion­al­ly."I be­lieve this would lead to a greater un­der­stand­ing of Ram­leela as an in­her­ent world cul­tur­al her­itage and that coun­tries in­volved in pro­mot­ing Ram­leela would be­gin the process of archiv­ing and shar­ing the spir­it and the eter­nal mes­sage of Ram­leela glob­al­ly," Dr Goop­tar said.

One of the high­lights of the con­fer­ence was the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Mol­ly Kaushal, an ex­pert in this area of Hin­duism, who is an as­so­ciate pro­fes­sor at the In­di­ra Gand­hi Na­tion­al Cen­tre for the Arts. She is cur­rent­ly head­ing the Jana­pa­da Sam­pa­da Di­vi­sion of the Cen­tre de­vot­ed to the study of cul­tur­al her­itage, folk­lore and lifestyle stud­ies. She has con­cep­tu­alised and or­gan­ised sev­er­al na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences, work­shops and sem­i­nars.The chair will ro­tate in coun­tries where fu­ture con­fer­ences are held. The next is set for In­dia in 2015, fol­lowed by Mau­ri­tius in 2017 and Suri­name in 2019.Ram­leela was brought to T&T in 1845 when East In­di­an in­den­tured labour­eres came from prin­ci­pal­ly Ut­tar Pradesh and Bi­har to work on sug­ar and co­coa plan­ta­tions. It was first staged un­der a huge cedar tree at Cedar Hill, Princes Town.

Ram­leela is a ten-day dra­ma based on the life, time and tri­umph of Lord Ra­ma, the prin­ci­pal in the Hin­du Holy text, the Ra­mayana. It pre­cedes the an­nu­al Hin­du Fes­ti­val of Lights, Di­vali.

Dr Goop­tar has ex­pressed the view that glob­al ef­forts favour or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­u­als who can reach bound­aries ef­fec­tive­ly and col­lab­o­rate with their part­ners across the seas.

"As a re­sult, per­for­mance, ex­cel­lence is no longer about in­di­vid­ual play­ers and ad­min­is­tra­tors–it's about co-or­di­na­tion and or­ches­tra­tion across bor­der­less bound­aries. To thrive in these in both acad­e­mia and prac­tice en­vi­ron­ments, one must op­ti­mise the per­for­mance of the glob­al Ram­leela com­mu­ni­ty–from the small­est group to the largest in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions."

Dr Goop­ta ex­plained that in plan­ning the con­fer­ence one of his ma­jor hopes was the es­tab­lish­ment of an in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion to point the way for fu­ture Ram­leela Con­fer­ences and as­so­ci­at­ed out­comes.Par­tic­i­pants came from In­dia, Suri­name, Guyana, Cana­da, the Unit­ed States and Mau­ri­tius, among oth­er coun­tries.