Paras Ra­moutar

Boodram, Kam­la, Rayan and Aryan Ra­moutar host­ed scores of rel­a­tives and friends at their Bras­so Ve­na­do home, Tabaquite on May 7. The oc­ca­sion was their an­nu­al thanks­giv­ing to Lord Vish­nu and Lord Hanu­man, and the prayers were re­cit­ed by Pun­dit Rishi Ma­haraj of Clax­ton Bay. Aryan was al­so chris­tened as a Hin­du by his god-fa­ther, Pun­dit Ma­haraj, who al­so gave a read­ing from the Hin­du holy text, the Ra­mayana. In his dis­course, Pun­dit Rishi, as he is af­fec­tion­ate­ly called, spoke of the need, "For fam­i­lies to stick to­geth­er and pray, as this was the on­ly hope for a fal­ter­ing hu­man­i­ty. "The el­ders, our fa­thers, moth­ers, grand­par­ents must be­come in­volved in the no­ble and pos­i­tive deeds and ac­tions so that our young ones, like Aryan would em­u­late these pos­i­tive hu­man val­ues and in so do­ing, would pro­mote healthy so­cial and fa­mil­ial liv­ing.

"We need to move away from all forms of in­ter­cine do­ings and let us all be­come our broth­er's keep­er. Let us keep fo­cus on Lord Hanu­man who is the great­est hu­man­i­tar­i­an," he said. "Let us all as mem­bers of the hu­man fam­i­ly and as chil­dren of God, re­gard­less of our eth­nic or re­li­gious per­sua­sion must work for the to­tal har­mo­ny of our coun­try. Let us, in our own small way, make a con­tri­bu­tion for our­selves, our so­ci­ety and for all mankind," he added. Kam­la Ra­moutar said that, "this an­nu­al thanks­giv­ing is aimed to bring our neigh­bours, friends and fam­i­lies to­geth­er and our prayers were for all of us. "We have to re­turn to re­li­gion and di­vin­i­ty and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty to save our young gen­er­a­tion. We have to be­ing this work now. Time is against us," she added.

The chant­i­ngs bha­jans and in­vo­ca­tions were done by Pun­dit Sa­tayanand Go­sein Sat­sang Group, and they con­tin­ued well in­to late night. Guests were treat­ed to au­then­tic East In­di­an cui­sine and sweets.