The Palmiste & En­vi­rons Dra­ma and Vi­su­al Arts So­ci­ety (Pan­davas) is stag­ing its eleventh an­nu­al Ram Leela at Palmiste Na­tion­al Park un­til Oc­to­ber 10, from 6.30 pm to 9 pm. The event be­gan last Fri­day evening. For yet an­oth­er year, Pan­davas is stag­ing this pres­ti­gious fes­ti­val with­out the kind of fund­ing re­quired. Chi­man­dath Ma­haraj, who is al­so an ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Ram Leela Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NRCTT), says that the Coun­cil presents its bud­gets and re­quests for fund­ing to the Min­istry of The Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism well in ad­vance. How­ev­er, the NRCTT was in­formed that they should not ex­pect any­thing from the Min­istry be­fore the end of Oc­to­ber, which would be long af­ter the Ram­leela pe­ri­od has passed. A re­lease last week stat­ed that the NRCTT be­lieves that the Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­istry has nev­er had a good grasp of the de­tails of In­di­an cul­ture. Its mem­bers how­ev­er are still hop­ing that some fund­ing will be forth­com­ing ear­li­er from this Min­istry.

Ma­haraj said that the NRCTT sees Ram Leela as a fac­tor that is help­ing to de­vel­op pos­i­tive val­ues and be­hav­iour in peo­ple and this con­tributes im­mense­ly to na­tion-build­ing. Fund­ing for this Ram Leela comes main­ly from the pro­ceeds of a tra­di­tion­al kitchen that is run by the women's com­mit­tee of Pan­davas which is head­ed by Ni­mi Kallan and Kowsil Gher­aw. They al­so get some cor­po­rate fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance from the area. Many in­di­vid­u­als al­so make gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tions. Some fund­ing is re­ceived from the Gov­ern­ment but this is usu­al­ly small and ar­rives late. The Palmiste & En­vi­rons Dra­ma and Vi­su­al Arts So­ci­ety Pan­davas had its nu­cle­us at the Bheekie Dass Mandir, Sir La­m­ont Av­enue, Phillip­ine. Led by Pun­dit Vish­nudath Ma­haraj, its mem­bers saw the need to broad­en their scope of in­volve­ment in the wider com­mu­ni­ty. Ram­leela was seen as one of the ways of broad­en­ing the mandir's im­pact on the com­mu­ni­ty.

Pan­davas pres­i­dent Chi­man­dath Ma­haraj has promised cer­tain im­prove­ments in Ram­leela 2011. This year his group is in­tro­duc­ing for the first time pro­fes­sion­al the­atre light­ing and clip-on mi­cro­phones.

Peo­ple at­tend­ing Ram­leela 2011 will not have to en­dure the mud on the ground if it rains be­cause tem­po­rary bleach­ers will be con­struct­ed to ac­com­mo­date up to 1,500 peo­ple. Last week Wednes­day, a spir­i­tu­al pu­rifi­ca­tion ex­er­cise took place at the Pan­davas head­quar­ters, the Vikash Anant Memo­r­i­al Ashram at Sir La­m­ont Av­enue, Phillip­ine. This ex­er­cise was con­duct­ed by Pun­dit Vish­nudath Ma­haraj. Pun­dit Vish­nudath is the Spir­i­tu­al Head of Pan­davas and di­rec­tor of the Ram Leela since its in­cep­tion 11 years ago.The main ac­tors in the Ram Leela are Vivek Ma­haraj (Sri Ram); Gay­a­tri Ma­haraj (Si­ta); Anand Khem­raj Gher­aw (Rawan); Amit Ram­samooj (Lak­sh­man); Anand Bu­choon (Hanu­man); Aneil Ram­samooj (Ra­ja Das­rath); Nivedi­ta Ma­haraj (Man­thra); Neil Beekhie(Ra­ja Janak); and, De­vanand Ram­samooj (Lord Shi­va). These ac­tors have all been in the group since its in­cep­tion 11 years ago. The pub­lic is in­vit­ed to and ad­mis­sion is free. They promised that there would be fea­tures that would be seen for the first time in any Ram­leela in this coun­try. Cu­mu­la­tive at­ten­dance at Palmiste Park is usu­al­ly in the tens of thou­sands.

At­ten­dance is at its peak on the penul­ti­mate day when Rawan is burnt and there is a fan­tas­tic fire­works dis­play.

HIS­TO­RY of RaM­leela

• Ram­leela came to Trinidad with In­di­an in­den­ture­ship 166 years ago. This year, the fes­ti­val will take place at more than 32 venues through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. There are venues to­day where Ram­leela is be­ing cel­e­brat­ed for more than 100 years such as Dow Vil­lage, St John's Vil­lage and Cedar Hill in Princes Town.

When Ram­leela start­ed at these venues the pre­sen­ta­tions would have tak­en place dur­ing the mid-af­ter­noon hours and the play­ers/ac­tors would have been all male. To­day, how­ev­er, casts al­so in­clude fe­males-some­times fe­males even play male roles, and per­for­mances are gen­er­al­ly on evenings be­tween the hours of six and nine. The style of por­tray­al was al­so nar­ra­tion/mim­ing.

Ram­leela has evolved to a stage where there is full script and di­a­logue. This style is used in Pan­davas Ram­leela where the play­ers must study their char­ac­ters and be pre­pared to do di­a­logue. Un­esco, The Unit­ed Na­tions Ed­u­ca­tion Sci­ence and Cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion, pro­claimed the tra­di­tion of Ram­leela a mas­ter­piece of the Oral and In­tan­gi­ble Her­itage of Hu­man­i­ty in 2005. Ram­leela lit­er­al­ly means Ra­ma's Play and is a dra­mat­ic folk re-en­act­ment of the life of Sri Ram. The source of in­for­ma­tion of the life of Sri Ram is The Ram­char­it­manas (The Holy Ra­mayan), a ma­jor Hin­du epic. In the Ra­mayan, an avatar or in­car­na­tion of Lord Vish­nu is the hero, Sri Ram who is the ex­am­ple of a per­fect hu­man be­ing who strug­gles against evil, rep­re­sent­ed main­ly by an evil king Rawan. Sri Ram even­tu­al­ly con­quers Rawan rep­re­sent­ing the vic­to­ry of good over evil. Sri Ram is then in­stalled as King of Ay­o­d­ha, that land where its cit­i­zens live in a most bliss­ful state.