RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ex­cite­ment is build­ing in Bar­rack­pore as Phag­wa re­turns to the Vic­to­ria Unit­ed Sports Club at Val­ley­line for the first time since 1989, bring­ing with it colour, chow­tal and com­mu­ni­ty uni­ty.

More than 40 cul­tur­al and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions are com­ing to­geth­er this Sun­day to re­vive the cel­e­bra­tions.

For the vice chair­man of the Moru­ga/Table­land/Bar­rack­pore con­stituen­cy, Dhanesh Ma­haraj, the re­vival is sa­cred.

“Since 1989, we’ve not had the cel­e­bra­tions on this ground,” he said. “This is re­al­ly the heart and soul of Bar­rack­pore, the cul­tur­al cap­i­tal of the con­stituen­cy, and we’re bring­ing it back.”

Ma­haraj ex­plained that fund­ing chal­lenges over the years forced the event to oth­er venues and, even­tu­al­ly, in­to dor­man­cy at the Vic­to­ria Unit­ed grounds.

While Phag­wa con­tin­ued in­for­mal­ly — with vil­lagers play­ing abeer and singing from house to house, he said the large, or­gan­ised cel­e­bra­tion at Vic­to­ria Unit­ed ground fad­ed.

“Fund­ing start­ed to die off,” he said. “But this year, busi­ness peo­ple and more than 40 or­gan­i­sa­tions came to­geth­er. Even non-Hin­du or­gan­i­sa­tions stepped for­ward be­cause they want­ed to see this fes­ti­val re­turn.”

He stressed that Phag­wa, though root­ed in Hin­du tra­di­tion, has al­ways tran­scend­ed re­li­gious lines in Bar­rack­pore.

“Phag­wa isn’t just a Hin­du fes­ti­val here. It brings the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty to­geth­er—re­gard­less of race or re­li­gion. Every­body comes out. They bring their chil­dren. They cel­e­brate.”

Mean­while, el­der­ly stal­warts like Pun­dit Jairam Ram­sub­hag said there should al­so be a re­vival of chow­tal singing.

Ram­sub­hag said chow­tal is sung in Bho­jpuri and is the tri­umph of good over evil through the sto­ry of Pra­ha­l­ad.

Ram­sub­hag, 82, a mem­ber of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion and the Di­vine Life So­ci­ety, re­mem­bers when Val­ley­line’s Ra­mayan and Chow­tal group trav­elled across Trinidad per­form­ing at chow­tal gath­er­ings.

He be­lieves the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic dealt a se­ri­ous blow to or­gan­ised singing.

Par­boo Jawahir, 73, of the Kailash Pati Mandir, Kan­hai Trace South, re­called when as many as 300 vil­lagers would move from house to house on Phag­wa morn­ing, singing through­out Kan­hai Road North and South.

“We used to start at nine in the morn­ing and sing house to house,” he said. “By evening, you had about 300 peo­ple with us, dec­o­rat­ed and cel­e­brat­ing.”

But chang­ing times have made that hard­er to sus­tain.

“In our days, peo­ple worked cane and rice. You worked day­light and had the evening free,” Jawahir said. “Now, chil­dren go to school, and adults work long hours. When will they come to sing?”

Both men agree that preser­va­tion must now in­volve young peo­ple—and per­haps even schools.

“Since they in­tro­duced pan and oth­er in­stru­ments in schools, we could have chow­tal singing too,” Jawahir sug­gest­ed. “Every school has chil­dren who would be in­ter­est­ed.”

For first-time par­tic­i­pant Auld­wyn Tou­s­saint, of the Moru­ga/Table­land Cul­tur­al Group, Sun­day’s cel­e­bra­tion rep­re­sents more than cul­tur­al re­vival.

“We live in a cos­mopoli­tan coun­try,” he said. “Some­times we see ten­sion dur­ing elec­tions, but af­ter that, every­body lives to­geth­er in har­mo­ny. Events like this can bring uni­ty.”

MP for Moru­ga Table­land Michelle Ben­jamin said all na­tion­al fes­ti­vals should be mean­ing­ful­ly cel­e­brat­ed. Say­ing it was a cel­e­bra­tion of hope over de­spair, Ben­jamin said for years Phag­wa was not cel­e­brat­ed in some parts of Bar­rack­pore. She said sup­port­ing na­tion­al fes­ti­vals like these au­gurs well for na­tion­al uni­ty.