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Sunday, July 27, 2025

Nirvaana Sugrim...Marching to the beat of her drum

by

Gillian Caliste
1543 days ago
20210509

Attorney and dholak player, Nirvaana Sugrim, centre, with her mother, Kalawati and sister, Nandita.

Nir­vaana Sug­rim has al­ways marched to the beat of her own drum. At six years old, she sat among peo­ple many times her age, play­ing a male-dom­i­nat­ed in­stru­ment al­most twice her size. When one aca­d­e­m­ic de­gree did not ful­fil her, she pushed for an­oth­er. Cur­rent­ly an at­tor­ney, she wants to use her brazen yet hum­ble ap­proach to life to help oth­ers reach their full po­ten­tial.

As a child, Sug­rim found the pul­sat­ing rhythm of the dho­lak fas­ci­nat­ing. She en­joyed how the two-head­ed hand drum car­ried the oth­er in­stru­ments as she ob­served men play­ing it at Sat­sangs (Hin­du gath­er­ings for prayers and med­i­ta­tion) or Ra­mayana (re­li­gious sto­ry teach­ing im­por­tant virtues) at Blue Star T&T, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that fo­cuss­es on de­vel­op­ing all as­pects of the in­di­vid­ual. It was not long be­fore she be­gan to im­i­tate the mu­si­cians.

Nirvaana Sugrim.

Nirvaana Sugrim.

“I was ba­si­cal­ly brought up there and al­so at the Ch­agua­nas Hin­du Tem­ple. There were two drum­mers who were left-han­ders and I watched them over time. At home, Mum­my bought a drum, I had a lit­tle stool and I just start­ed. I looked and I learned. It's some­thing I can't de­scribe. It just came out nat­u­ral­ly,” she laughed as she spoke with the Sun­day Guardian in a re­cent in­ter­view.

When peo­ple vis­it­ed her grand­moth­er's home in Cara­pichaima for Sat­sangs, she and her younger sis­ter, Nan­di­ta, would play while the adults sang; nev­er mind that the in­stru­ment was al­most twice their size. De­spite be­ing right-hand­ed, Sug­rim end­ed up play­ing left-hand­ed just like the two mu­si­cians she care­ful­ly mim­ic­ked. This did lit­tle to curb her love for the folk in­stru­ment.

“I al­ways say I have a very spe­cial re­la­tion­ship with my dho­lak. My dho­lak is like my best friend. I feel so con­nect­ed with my drum–I don't play as much any­more be­cause work has con­sumed my life–but when­ev­er I do, I con­nect to God and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and to my re­al self in a dif­fer­ent way. It al­lows me to be free,” she shared.

Hav­ing lost her fa­ther in 2003, Sug­rim said it was mu­sic that car­ried her through her school life. From Ch­agua­nas Gov­ern­ment School at the pri­ma­ry lev­el to Saraswati Girls' Hin­du Col­lege, play­ing mu­sic an­chored her; that and a strong, sup­port­ive moth­er who had a recipe for suc­cess.

“My mum al­ways en­sured that we had a bal­anced life. It was not al­ways about be­ing a straight-A stu­dent and con­cen­trat­ing on aca­d­e­mics. It was more about be­ing holis­tic, so spir­i­tu­al­i­ty plays a key role in my life as well as mu­sic,” Sug­rim said.

Most­ly self-taught on the dho­lak, Sug­rim at­tend­ed for­mal class­es to learn the tabla at the Trinidad branch of the Bharatiya Vidya Sansth­haan (BVS), an ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion that teach­es East In­di­an tra­di­tions and cul­ture. How­ev­er, the larg­er drum re­mained her pas­sion.

Al­though peo­ple were amazed that a girl played the dho­lak and even more in­trigued when Sug­rim some­times sang while play­ing, be­ing a fe­male in a male-dom­i­nat­ed are­na was nev­er an is­sue, she said, adding that she knew of a few women who play the dho­lak lo­cal­ly.

“It is a male-dom­i­nat­ed in­stru­ment; drum­ming on the whole...I just don't see it as that. I think that what­ev­er they can do, I can do too,” she grinned.

She said the males around her were al­ways will­ing to help her learn. Nei­ther did her moth­er ever ob­ject.

“My mum has al­ways been one who, when­ev­er she sees her girls' tal­ents, she al­lows them to blos­som. She was nev­er one to dom­i­nate what we did.”

How­ev­er, when Sug­rim had wa­vered at com­plet­ing her Bach­e­lors in Eco­nom­ics at UWI years ear­li­er, her moth­er did in­sist: “You start it, you fin­ish it!”

Nirvaana Sugrim, centre, playing the dholak as a child.

Nirvaana Sugrim, centre, playing the dholak as a child.

At the time, Sug­rim was al­so pur­su­ing a Mi­nor in Pol­i­tics and the heavy de­mands of the pro­gramme were prov­ing too much. Spurred on by her moth­er, she fin­ished her de­gree. But feel­ing a deep yearn­ing for some­thing more, she went on to at­tain an LLB with the In­sti­tute of Law and Aca­d­e­m­ic Stud­ies (ILAS) through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and Stafford­shire Uni­ver­si­ty.

“I al­ways had a pas­sion for be­ing out­spo­ken. It was al­ways in my na­ture. I was very out­go­ing and al­ways had a pas­sion for law and what was right,” she re­called.

She be­lieves that her de­ci­sion made sense since the Eco­nom­ics/Pol­i­tics/Law com­bi­na­tion af­ford­ed a greater un­der­stand­ing of how things work and re­flect­ed the way she was brought up to ap­pre­ci­ate all as­pects of life.

Af­ter be­ing called to Bar in 2018, she took up a po­si­tion at the Land Set­tle­ment Agency (LSA), Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment the same year.

At work, Sug­rim is part of a pro­gramme that caters to “vul­ner­a­ble” mem­bers of so­ci­ety. The LSA reg­u­laris­es squat­ters by de­vel­op­ing ar­eas that were squat­ting vil­lages be­fore 1998. Re­cip­i­ents re­ceive cer­tifi­cates of com­fort and lat­er, deeds of lease. Sug­rim serves di­rect­ly un­der the Hous­ing Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme which helps ren­o­vate and re­con­struct hous­es in dire need of re­pair in par­tic­u­lar ar­eas of the coun­try.

It is a “beau­ti­ful pro­gramme” of which she is proud to be a part, she said.

“What at­tract­ed me is that long time you know how you would say we build a vil­lage to­geth­er? That is the spir­it of the pro­gramme where the vil­lage comes to­geth­er and builds the homes. The Gov­ern­ment pro­vides a grant through the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment and the LSA man­ages the pro­gramme.

“When you in­crease peo­ple's so­cio-eco­nom­ic liv­ing it gives a dif­fer­ent type of joy, as well as helps them to help them­selves,” she said, adding that the pro­gramme has reached peo­ple in ar­eas like Moru­ga, Mara­bel­la, Point Fortin, San Fer­nan­do, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, San­gre Grande and St Joseph.

On week­ends, along with oth­er men­tors, Sug­rim spends her Sun­days teach­ing youths about holis­tic de­vel­op­ment through med­i­ta­tion and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. As a child, be­ing at the tem­ple and Blue Star fos­tered her tal­ents and those of the chil­dren around her, pro­mot­ing their all-round de­vel­op­ment, Sug­rim felt. She wants to pass this on to oth­ers. Sim­i­lar to Bible study, they do Baal Vikaas, show­ing that spir­i­tu­al­i­ty should be present in all ar­eas of life rather than just on days you vis­it places of wor­ship.

“We grew up hum­ble. It was dif­fi­cult grow­ing up with­out a dad, but in what­ev­er dif­fi­cul­ties we would have faced, hav­ing that re­la­tion­ship with God was the most im­por­tant thing that was drilled in us,” she re­called.

She paid trib­ute to the two women who shaped her path the most–her moth­er, who was an in­ter­nal au­di­tor in the pub­lic ser­vice and god­moth­er, Drau­patie Ma­haraj, a for­mer teacher.

“I'm for­ev­er grate­ful to have been born to such a moth­er and to have been im­pact­ed by such a god­moth­er. They are such hum­ble be­ings, yet pow­er­ful; they have been the per­fect role mod­els. They are my pil­lars.”

Sug­rim al­so had high praise for her gu­ru, Sri Va­sude­va and her god­fa­ther Pun­dit Rand­hir Ma­haraj who played ma­jor roles in her up­bring­ing. She al­so ap­pre­ci­ates the teach­ers at pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school who en­cour­aged her.

Sur­prised by lots of pos­i­tive feed­back she re­ceived when she was re­cent­ly fea­tured on Mas­sive Go­sine's Face­book chal­lenge to salute tal­ent­ed play­ers of the dho­lak or dhan­tal, she said she had sent in her pho­to “just for fun.”

Apart from cher­ish­ing her dho­lak, Sug­rim said she re­mains com­mit­ted to help­ing oth­ers, es­pe­cial­ly the youth.

“My goal is to keep learn­ing some­thing new and just be bet­ter than who I was the day be­fore; im­prove my­self so I can im­part to oth­ers.”

Women


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