Paras Ra­moutar

As part of the 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, a com­pe­ti­tion has been launched to cre­ate a theme song for the Na­tion­al Ram Leela Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The win­ner of the Na­tion­al Ram Leela Theme Song Com­pe­ti­tion will re­ceive a cash prize of $15,000 and a tro­phy, said In­dra Pooran, as­sis­tant trea­sur­er of the Coun­cil. En­tries close on Ju­ly 31, 2012.

The theme song, Pooran said, must re­flect the spir­it of Ram Leela as the­atre, and the melody must rep­re­sent as­pects of Ram Leela/Ra­mayana tra­di­tion. It must al­so must be writ­ten in Hin­di script with trans­la­tion and translit­er­a­tion pro­vid­ed in both hard and soft copies.

Ac­cord­ing to Pooran, "The theme song is de­signed to ed­u­cate, de­vel­op and pro­mote the sev­er­al as­pects of our coun­try's rich and di­verse cul­ture." She said the main ob­jec­tive of this ini­tia­tive was to en­gen­der a sense of pride in Ram Leela, "while re­in­forc­ing the nu­mer­ous lessons which so­ci­ety may learn from this de­cep­tion in Ra­mayana, since Ram Leela is an in­te­gral part of the her­itage of this coun­try."

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Coun­cil has planned a se­ries of ac­tiv­i­ties to com­mem­o­rate the mile­stone of T&T's 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence. On June 19 and 20, the Ay­o­dy­ha Re­search In­sti­tute (ARI) of Ut­tar Pradesh staged two mas­ter­piece shows on Ram Lila and Kr­ish­na Lila at Di­vali Na­gar.

The pres­ence of the ARI's Ram Lila in T&T was joint­ly spon­sored by the In­di­an Coun­cil for Cul­tur­al Re­la­tions, the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion, and the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC). Work­shops and shows were held in sev­er­al ar­eas across the coun­try.

About Ram Leela

Ram Leela is the mys­tery of God ap­pear­ing in His own cre­ation and per­form­ing ef­fort­less­ly and with­out de­sire, which is ful­ly de­scribed in the Holy Ra­mayan. Through­out the Holy Ra­mayan, Tul­si Das dwells con­tin­u­ous­ly on the en­com­pass­ing won­ders of Lord Ra­ma's bound­less grace and seeks to teach mankind the won­ders of the uni­verse.

The Ram Leela ends with the epic bat­tle be­tween Lord Ra­ma and Ra­van. This tra­di­tion orig­i­nates from the In­di­an sub-con­ti­nent where it is staged an­nu­al­ly. And there are re­ports that the cast of the ARI has staged the show for nine con­sec­u­tive years, each day. Ay­o­d­hya is the cen­tral point of Ut­tar Pradesh, from where the bulk of East In­di­ans came to work on the sug­ar and co­coa plan­ta­tions be­tween 1845 and 1917.