Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Lo­cal In­di­an cul­ture could re­ceive a boost if the Gov­ern­ment in­vest­ed in com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­bra­tions such as Ram­leela and Di­vali, said Pierre Road Ram­leela Com­mit­tee head Kim­chan Sa­hadeo.

He spoke with Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed yes­ter­day as the com­mit­tee erect­ed three ef­fi­gies of Hin­du mytho­log­i­cal fig­ures for the fes­ti­val’s grand fi­nale.

Sa­hadeo said the an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion gave peo­ple an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn about Hin­duism and the rich In­di­an cul­ture that forms part of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s her­itage.

He said com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­bra­tions al­lowed peo­ple to ex­pe­ri­ence cul­tur­al and re­li­gious tra­di­tions and bet­ter un­der­stand their sig­nif­i­cance. The events were open to every­one, he added, giv­ing peo­ple from dif­fer­ent back­grounds an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­pre­ci­ate the coun­try’s cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty.

This year’s pro­duc­tion cost more than $300,000, Sa­hadeo said. Most of the fund­ing was raised through com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives and fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, and the com­mit­tee re­ceived no State spon­sor­ship.

While some cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tions re­ceived fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance, groups ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing and pro­mot­ing tra­di­tion­al cul­tur­al prac­tices of­ten strug­gled to se­cure ad­e­quate fund­ing, he said. Ram­leela groups across Trinidad and To­ba­go faced sim­i­lar chal­lenges in rais­ing the mon­ey need­ed to stage their an­nu­al pro­duc­tions.

De­spite the fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties, the Pierre Road Ram­leela Com­mit­tee re­mained com­mit­ted to keep­ing the tra­di­tion alive and mak­ing the cel­e­bra­tions ac­ces­si­ble to the wider com­mu­ni­ty.