Paras Ra­moutar

Away from fetes, danc­ing and mer­ry-mak­ing as T&T ob­serves Car­ni­val over the next two days, de­vout Hin­dus will vis­it tem­ples and oth­er pub­lic places to ob­serve the an­nu­al Shiv­ra­tri to­mor­row.

Thou­sands of Hin­du women dressed in saris and men in kur­tas will spend the night in over 400 tem­ples across the land, of­fer­ing spe­cial jhalls (a mix­ture of milk, dhai, flow­ers, sug­ar-cane, sweets) to Lord Shi­va.

For the past three weeks, Hin­dus main­tained strict ad­her­ence and did not eat meat or in­dulge in al­co­holic drinks in prepa­ra­tion for Shiv­ra­tri.

Scores of tem­ples host­ed spe­cial Lord Shi­va Yag­nas.

Ramesh Ti­wari, spir­i­tu­al leader of the Ed­in­burgh Hin­du tem­ple in Ch­agua­nas, has called on the na­tion, "to em­brace the teach­ings es­poused in the Shi­va Pu­ranas and oth­er Hin­du re­li­gious texts."

"The ob­ser­vance of Shiv­ra­tri gives mankind an­oth­er chance to re­con­nect with Lord Shi­va. The world con­tin­ues to trav­el down the path­way of spir­i­tu­al, oral and eth­i­cal de­cline," Ti­wari told devo­tees.

Pun­dit Seereer­am Ma­haraj, of the Shiv Kail­sha spoke of the need for, "our young peo­ple to move away from all forms of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, and obei­sance to Lord Shi­va will help them to drift away from these in­ter­cine habits and prac­tices."

The ob­ser­vance of Shiv­ra­tri was brought by the in­den­tured In­di­an labour­ers who came from Ut­tar Pradesh and Bi­har be­tween 1845 and 1917. Shi­va Raa­tri is one of sev­er­al sa­cred Hin­du ob­ser­vances that were brought here by our fore­fa­thers. Oth­ers in­clude Di­vali, Phag­wa, Lord Ra­ma and Lord Kr­ish­na Jana­mashti

Out of a pop­u­la­tion of 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple, some 25 per cent are de­vout Hin­dus.