Shas­tri Boodan

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

For more than 180 years, the sto­ry of Lord Ram’s bat­tle against the de­mon king Ra­van has been re­told in com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad, sus­tained by the faith, sac­ri­fice and de­ter­mi­na­tion of gen­er­a­tions of de­scen­dants of In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers.

From Fe­lic­i­ty in cen­tral Trinidad to Bar­rack­pore in the south, San­gre Grande in the east, and com­mu­ni­ties in Princes Town and Fyz­abad, Ram­leela has be­come more than a re­li­gious ob­ser­vance. It is a liv­ing ex­pres­sion of In­di­an cul­tur­al her­itage, held to­geth­er by vol­un­teers, vil­lage or­gan­i­sa­tions, small busi­ness­es and res­i­dents de­ter­mined to keep their an­ces­tors’ tra­di­tions alive.

The an­nu­al open-air folk the­atre, which drama­tis­es episodes from the Hin­du epic Ra­mayana, brings com­mu­ni­ties to­geth­er for ten nights of per­for­mances cul­mi­nat­ing in the burn­ing of gi­ant ef­fi­gies of Ra­van, sym­bol­is­ing the tri­umph of good over evil.

But be­hind the elab­o­rate cos­tumes, dra­mat­ic bat­tles, mu­sic and tow­er­ing ef­fi­gies lies a less vis­i­ble sto­ry—one of com­mu­ni­ties pool­ing their lim­it­ed re­sources, giv­ing their time and mak­ing per­son­al sac­ri­fices to en­sure the tra­di­tion sur­vives.

A tra­di­tion built on com­mu­ni­ty sup­port

In Pierre Road, Char­lieville, where Ram­leela has been staged for more than 70 years, that com­mit­ment has helped trans­form a mod­est vil­lage pro­duc­tion in­to one of the coun­try’s largest cel­e­bra­tions.

Kem­c­hand Sa­hadeo, head of the Pierre Road Ram­leela Group, said this year’s pro­duc­tion cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $315,000, raised through a com­bi­na­tion of com­mu­ni­ty fundrais­ing, busi­ness sup­port and con­tri­bu­tions from in­di­vid­u­als.

Sa­hadeo said the group re­lied on mon­ey saved from the pre­vi­ous year’s cel­e­bra­tion, pro­ceeds from a Veg­gie-Q on May 29, and as­sis­tance from busi­ness­es and res­i­dents.

“The chip­ping, the $1, the $2, the $5, all these things count at the end of the day,” Sa­hadeo said.

For the or­gan­is­ers, the fi­nan­cial sup­port rep­re­sents more than mon­ey. It re­flects a com­mu­ni­ty’s will­ing­ness to take own­er­ship of its cul­tur­al in­her­i­tance and en­sure that Ram­leela re­mains ac­ces­si­ble to the next gen­er­a­tion.

Sa­hadeo said the Pierre Road cel­e­bra­tion had grown through years of rein­vest­ment, with what­ev­er mon­ey re­mained af­ter one pro­duc­tion be­ing put aside to help fi­nance the next.

He re­called that the group be­gan with lit­tle more than a small shed and a bam­boo struc­ture.

“I mean, as the pres­i­dent, I take bills, I open in­voic­es all over the places,” he said, de­scrib­ing the fi­nan­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties that come with or­gan­is­ing the event.

“You un­der­stand? But I al­ways say, by the help of God, the bills will be paid.”

The peo­ple be­hind

the spec­ta­cle

Sa­hadeo, who has served as pres­i­dent for 23 years, cred­it­ed the ex­ec­u­tive and com­mit­tee mem­bers with help­ing to build the event in­to what it is to­day.

“But if not for the guys on the floor, I am noth­ing. Ram­leela is noth­ing,” he said.

He said vol­un­teers re­peat­ed­ly put aside their dai­ly rou­tines to work on the pro­duc­tion, of­ten spend­ing evenings and nights prepar­ing the grounds, con­struct­ing struc­tures and or­gan­is­ing the per­for­mances with­out pay­ment.

“The guys come out day af­ter day, night af­ter night, evening af­ter evening from their dai­ly sched­ule. And they come for free. And they do what they have to do,” he said.

That spir­it of vol­un­teerism is cen­tral to the sur­vival of com­mu­ni­ty Ram­leela, where the work ex­tends well be­yond the ten nights of per­for­mance. Months of plan­ning, fundrais­ing, re­hearsals, cos­tume prepa­ra­tion and con­struc­tion are re­quired be­fore the first scene un­folds.

At Pierre Road, the com­mu­ni­ty’s con­tri­bu­tion is al­so vis­i­ble in the con­struc­tion of the Ra­van ef­fi­gies.

This year, three ef­fi­gies were planned for the cel­e­bra­tions, in­clud­ing an 85-foot struc­ture built by the com­mit­tee, a 50-foot ef­fi­gy brought by sup­port­ers from Fe­lic­i­ty, and an­oth­er built by young peo­ple in Pierre Road aged be­tween 11 and 15.

The in­volve­ment of the young builders is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant, as Ram­leela’s fu­ture de­pends on whether younger gen­er­a­tions are pre­pared to learn the skills and as­sume the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties re­quired to sus­tain it.

The event of­fers more than en­ter­tain­ment. It pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with their her­itage, un­der­stand the Ra­mayana and par­tic­i­pate di­rect­ly in a cul­tur­al prac­tice brought to Trinidad by their fore­par­ents.

Sa­hadeo said the Pierre Road group re­ceived $15,000 in gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance in 2023 but had not re­ceived fund­ing for the fol­low­ing two years, de­spite sub­mit­ting pa­per­work for 2025.

He said or­gan­is­ers had been giv­en an in­di­ca­tion that fund­ing for 2025 might be forth­com­ing af­ter the cel­e­bra­tions, al­though the amount had not been dis­closed. Fund­ing for the 2026 cel­e­bra­tions would be pur­sued through the sub­mis­sion of in­voic­es, he added.

The de­lay places ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on groups that must com­mit to sub­stan­tial ex­pens­es be­fore know­ing whether pub­lic as­sis­tance will ma­te­ri­alise.

Ker­ry Ra­moutar, head of the Na­tion­al Ram­leela Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go Inc, said the or­gan­i­sa­tion had lob­bied for $1 mil­lion in fund­ing for this year’s cel­e­bra­tions.

How­ev­er, she said some groups were still await­ing mon­ey promised for the pre­vi­ous year.

“When I met with Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin in ear­ly Oc­to­ber, she as­sured me that 2025 would be ready soon be­cause there was an ad­min­is­tra­tive er­ror that had been cor­rect­ed,” Ra­moutar said.

Ra­moutar said she al­so in­tend­ed to ad­dress oth­er out­stand­ing pay­ments. She said there were more than 15 ac­tive Ram­leela groups in Trinidad.

The sit­u­a­tion high­lights the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges fac­ing com­mu­ni­ty cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, many of which de­pend on small do­na­tions and lo­cal busi­ness­es to stage events that at­tract thou­sands of spec­ta­tors.

Tak­ing the tra­di­tion be­yond Trinidad

The tra­di­tion al­so has a his­to­ry be­yond Trinidad’s shores. In 2009, the To­ba­go Hin­du So­ci­ety staged Ram­leela in To­ba­go, bring­ing per­form­ers from Trinidad to the sis­ter isle for the event.

Ra­moutar said she planned to take Ram­leela work­shops to To­ba­go and un­der­take per­for­mances there in the first half of 2027.

The dra­mat­ic pow­er of the pro­duc­tion has al­so at­tract­ed wider cul­tur­al recog­ni­tion. No­bel lau­re­ate Derek Wal­cott praised Ram­leela for its street-the­atre qual­i­ties, re­flect­ing its abil­i­ty to turn open com­mu­ni­ty spaces in­to stages for a sto­ry that has en­dured across gen­er­a­tions.

Ram­leela re­mains a com­mu­ni­ty achieve­ment. Its sur­vival de­pends not on­ly on the per­form­ers who bring Ram, Si­ta, Hanu­man and Ra­vana to life, but al­so on the peo­ple who raise funds, sew cos­tumes, build ef­fi­gies, pre­pare food, or­gan­ise park­ing and main­tain the grounds.