Paras Ra­moutar

Hun­dreds of To­bag­o­ni­ans at­tend­ed the San­tan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions at Tropik­ist Ho­tel, To­ba­go, on Fri­day night. It was an evening to re­mem­ber as the space was filled with an au­ra of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty as Pun­dit Davin­dra Ma­haraj per­formed Lak­sh­mi Pu­ja in which Rayan Ra­moutar and her son, Aryan ful­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed. Mi­nor­i­ty THA leader, Ash­worth Jack, in a stir­ring ad­dress called on every­one to par­tic­i­pate and re­spect each one's cul­ture as this is a pos­i­tive way to build any so­ci­ety. "There is on­ly one race, and that is the hu­man race of which all of are equal part­ners.

And it is for this main rea­son that we all must re­spect and learn about each oth­er's cul­ture. Our coun­try is rich­er with the in­puts of the var­i­ous so­cial and cul­tur­al strains," he said. THA As­sem­bly­man Rol­ly Quaccoo and Shirley Cookee de­liv­ered a mes­sage on be­half of Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Dr Bel­lon Bak­er. She said that Trinidad and To­ba­go's rich cul­tur­al strength must be sued in the process of na­tion-build­ing and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Quaccoo point­ed out, like oth­er cul­tures, drum­ming was an in­te­gral part of East In­di­an cul­ture, and this tells me that there is great cor­re­la­tion among the var­i­ous re­li­gions of mankind.

He added: "We in Trinidad and To­ba­go must al­ways em­brace each oth­er as we em­bark on se­ri­ous na­tion-build­ing, and that cul­ture re­mains the ide­al ve­hi­cle to its fullest man­i­fes­ta­tion." A cul­tur­al pro­gramme fea­tured some of this coun­try's top East In­di­an en­ter­tain­ers, in­clud­ing dances by Princess Priya of Palmiste, Ca­paro; Si­ta De­vi Dance Group led by Saman­tha Mooti­lal and Shali­ni Em­rith; songs by Kavesh Ma­haraj and Group, and the Sweet Trinidad Tass Group, fol­lowed by mouth-wa­ter­ing East In­di­an cui­sine served in style, and which some of the scores of tourists rel­ished. Ra­moutar said that Di­vali has tak­en hold in To­ba­go, and it will one day chal­lenge Trinidad's cel­e­bra­tions.

"In our cel­e­bra­tions, we at­tempt to show­case re­li­gion, cul­ture and peo­ple's par­tic­i­pa­tion," she said. Ra­moutar, pres­i­dent of the Bago-In­dia Cul­tur­al So­ci­ety, said that, "in the com­ing years, we project that Di­vali in To­ba­go would in­cor­po­rate sev­er­al oth­er strands in Hin­duism and In­di­an cul­ture." "The de­vel­op­ment of any so­ci­ety must in­cor­po­rate every­one's cul­ture. And we have seen, that the peo­ple of To­ba­go are com­ing out in greater num­bers every year to par­tic­i­pate in our an­nu­al Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions," Ra­moutar added.

Paras Ra­moutar