Indian Caribbean Museum celebrates fifth anniversary

 Shastri Boodan

The Indian Caribbean Museum celebrated its fifth anniversary last Friday with a dinner party at Gaston Courts, Lange Park, Chaguanas.

Addressing the gathering were members of various denominational faiths, including Alvin Seereeram, secretary general of the Presbyterian Board, Kashma Khan of the ASJA board and Satnarayan Maharaj, secretary general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha.

Dr Glenn Ramadharsingh, Minister of the People and Social Development, also addressed those in attendance.

“I commend your vision, as well as your dedication in preserving such a significant part of our nation’s history. As our only specialised repository of information and artifacts pertaining to the East Indian experience, the Indian Caribbean Museum is one of our must important links to the past,” Ramadharsingh said.

The museum, he said, provided a powerful bridge to T&T’s history, and acted as a foundation for collective memory and a space that advocated for mutual understanding and cohesion.

Maharaj made a public appeal for a kattiya, a bed using ropes, on which he said the Indentured Indians slept. He said the museum was hard pressed to find one. 

He instructed the museum to plant a root of sugarcane, for he believed since the closure of Caroni (1975) Ltd seven years ago, the sugarcane has been disappearing from the landscape and may soon vanish completely.

He said by preserving the plant at the museum, those who visited the venue would have an opportunity to see a plant that was so abundant and had impacted on the development of T&T.