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.

“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.

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.”