KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

It’s an aus­pi­cious time for Hin­dus across T&T, a cel­e­bra­tion of light tri­umph­ing over dark­ness. While the glow of Di­vali may have dimmed in some ar­eas, the Gan­garam fam­i­ly of Debe con­tin­ues to keep the flames of tra­di­tion burn­ing bright.

At the home of the Gan­garam Fam­i­ly Dra­ma Group, de­vo­tion and prepa­ra­tion are al­ready in full swing. Colour­ful ta­pes­tries of Hin­du gods and god­dess­es adorn the walls, the scent of oil and in­cense fills the evening air, and the faint echo of tas­sa drums res­onates in the dis­tance.

For more than 43 years, Sham­mi Gan­garam and his fam­i­ly have host­ed an­nu­al Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, com­plete with dra­ma skits, danc­ing, drum­ming, and tas­sa per­for­mances—a tra­di­tion that has be­come a fix­ture in their com­mu­ni­ty.

Fol­low­ing COVID-19 re­stric­tions, Sham­mi said the fes­ti­val is slow­ly re­gain­ing its spir­it, though cel­e­bra­tions are few­er. He ex­plained that keep­ing such tra­di­tions alive re­quires both com­mit­ment and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port.

“If you are good peo­ple, peo­ple will help you in this world to­day,” he said, smil­ing as he arranged of­fer­ings at his home tem­ple.

Re­flect­ing on ear­li­er times, Sham­mi re­called when en­tire neigh­bour­hoods came alive with light, laugh­ter, and to­geth­er­ness.

“Di­vali was most out­stand­ing long time. You felt like Moth­er Lak­sh­mi was com­ing in­to your home. But now, with how the coun­try is, it is not safe any­more, so peo­ple are do­ing their own thing at home. They do their small Poo­ja. It is on­ly we and some groups that have this cel­e­bra­tion, and they in­vite peo­ple. Still, this coun­try is not safe to wel­come out­siders,” he said.

De­spite these chal­lenges, Sham­mi re­mains hope­ful that devo­tees will re­vive the col­lec­tive spir­it of Di­vali and strength­en Sanatan Dhar­ma, the eter­nal way of light. Light­ing a sin­gle deya, he ex­plained, in­vites bless­ings, wealth, and guid­ance from Moth­er Lak­sh­mi.

His daugh­ter, Aleisha Gan­garam, the lead ac­tor of the fam­i­ly’s dra­ma group, be­gins prepa­ra­tions a month be­fore Di­vali with fast­ing and spir­i­tu­al readi­ness, but the hard work starts much ear­li­er. Re­hearsals for the dra­ma skits be­gin three months in ad­vance, fol­lowed by dec­o­ra­tion, do­na­tion dri­ves, and prepar­ing re­fresh­ments for vil­lagers.

On Sat­ur­day, the Gan­garams host­ed their Grand Di­vali Cel­e­bra­tion, dis­trib­ut­ing gift bags to over 200 chil­dren.

“We had over 24 Di­vali queens, princess­es, and kings. Oth­er places may have one, but here we give a lot to the pub­lic, es­pe­cial­ly those less for­tu­nate. We try to make every­one feel like you do not need to dress well to be a princess or a queen,” Aleisha said.

For Aleisha, Di­vali rep­re­sents light, hap­pi­ness, and uni­ty, a time when every­one—Hin­du or not—comes to­geth­er in joy.

As dusk falls, the Gan­garam fam­i­ly will per­form a Lak­sh­mi poo­ja at 6 pm, light hun­dreds of deyas, and wel­come vil­lagers to share sweets, songs, and bha­jans, keep­ing alive the light of de­vo­tion that has guid­ed their fam­i­ly for gen­er­a­tions.