In 1986 the first-ever Di­vali Na­gar was held at Mid Cen­tre Mall’s carpark in Ch­agua­nas.

It was the brain­child of the then pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) Hans­ley Hanoomans­ingh.

“The NCIC ex­pect­ed 10,000 peo­ple to vis­it. How­ev­er, on the first night, 23,000 peo­ple vis­it­ed the Di­vali Na­gar, which at the point in time was the largest cel­e­bra­tion of the In­di­an Di­as­po­ra in Trinidad. This was the fil­lip need­ed to push In­di­an Cul­ture in the fore­front of cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties in T&T,” Visham Bhimull states in the His­to­ry of the Di­vali Na­gar.

“The Di­vali Na­gar is a cel­e­bra­tion of Di­vali, the Hin­du fes­ti­val of lights. The term ‘Na­gar’ means city. It takes place every year, nine nights pri­or to Di­vali, end­ing on the night be­fore Di­vali. It is the largest Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion out­side of In­dia in one space,” the Na­tion­al Trust of T&T stat­ed in Di­vali Na­gar: The City of Lights.

Di­vali Na­gar was held at the Mid Cen­tre Mall’s carpark un­til 1989.

In 1991 the Di­vali Na­gar got a new home at the Narsa­loo Ra­maya Marg Road, Ch­agua­nas.

It has now be­come a lo­cal tourism event.

In 2019 it was said to have at­tract­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150,000 peo­ple over the nine-night pe­ri­od.

“The Na­gar has an an­nu­al theme which is tak­en from dif­fer­ent as­pects of Hin­duism. There are ed­u­ca­tion­al ac­tiv­i­ties and cul­tur­al per­for­mances by Trinida­di­ans, from the wider In­di­an Di­as­po­ra and from In­dia. A range of items are sold at the Di­vali Na­gar in­clud­ing In­di­an cloth­ing, Di­vali sup­plies and In­di­an and In­do-Trinida­di­an foods.

It is a very pop­u­lar food spot for Trinida­di­ans, many of whom sim­ply vis­it to par­take in the no­to­ri­ous pep­per roti,” the Na­tion­al Trust stat­ed.

As many as 120 small booths are rent­ed to en­tre­pre­neurs hop­ing to show­case their prod­ucts, NCIC pres­i­dent Dr De­ok­i­nanan Shar­ma told the Busi­ness Guardian.

There are al­so cor­po­rate booths on of­fer for larg­er en­ti­ties.

“With the kinds of crowds that are here they usu­al­ly get good ex­po­sure for what they are do­ing,” Shar­ma said.

Last year how­ev­er the NCIC had to can­cel the Di­vali Na­gar be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“Af­ter in­tense de­lib­er­a­tions and as­sess­ing of the many risks in­volved and to en­sure the health and safe­ty of ar­ti­sans, artistes, staff and mem­bers of the pub­lic, the Board of Di­rec­tors of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture has de­cid­ed that it is most pru­dent at this time to can­cel Di­vali Na­gar 2020 cel­e­bra­tions,” NCIC’s pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo stat­ed last year.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the pan­dem­ic and the re­sul­tant mea­sures put in place to stop its spread have forced the NCIC to have to can­cel the Di­vali Na­gar for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year.

“We are not hav­ing any kind of ac­tiv­i­ties like we used to have when the coun­try was nor­mal. All the busi­ness­es and the food court rental to small busi­ness­es all those are out for the NCIC and the Di­vali Na­gar,” Shar­ma said.

In­stead, Shar­ma ex­plained the NCIC has had a cul­tur­al pro­gramme post­ed on­line.

“Things are re­al­ly bad for busi­ness­es. If Di­vali was held un­der nor­mal con­di­tions this place would have been packed,” he said.

Shar­ma said the mon­ey raised from rent was one of the ways the NCIC fund­ed the pro­mo­tion of In­di­an cul­ture lo­cal­ly.

“I think the peo­ple who do rent, they come year af­ter year af­ter year. So I sus­pect they do pret­ty well dur­ing the Di­vali Na­gar but last year and this year we did not have the nor­mal Na­gar just vir­tu­al pro­grammes on­ly,” he said.

“It would have af­fect­ed a lot of small busi­ness­es that used to come here and make some funds dur­ing that pe­ri­od and the num­ber of peo­ple who usu­al­ly come here, thou­sands and thou­sands every day would have giv­en them fair­ly good sales,” he said.

Shar­ma said nor­mal­ly as soon as the Na­gar fin­ish­es, the ven­dors “book again al­most im­me­di­ate­ly for the fol­low­ing year.”

“That is out of the pic­ture now and I don’t know what is go­ing to hap­pen next year. The way things are go­ing it seems it will be an­oth­er year of this kind of thing,” he said.

“I am re­al­ly sor­ry for these small busi­ness­es it re­al­ly used to be quite good dur­ing the nine nights of Na­gar,” Shar­ma said.

Sal­isha Ra­goo­nanan is one of those ven­dors who has been a ten­ant of the Na­gar for years.

Ra­goo­nanan is the own­er of El­e­gant Ac­cents lo­cat­ed in El Do­ra­do.

Last year was tough for her as the Di­vali Na­gar was can­celled.

This year, how­ev­er, Ra­goo­nanan did not let the can­cel­la­tion of the Di­vali Na­gar ex­tin­guish her fire.

“Last year I did not do any­thing be­cause of the COVID sit­u­a­tion and then this year I de­cid­ed to try it at the store to see what the re­sponse would be like,” Ra­goo­nanan said.

With no nine nights of Na­gar this year, Ra­goo­nanan in­stead held nine days of $99 spe­cials she called Di­vali Mela.

“COVID hap­pened and sales have been down. What I did is run a pro­mo­tion in my store, a Di­vali sale,” she said.

El­e­gant Ac­cents sells gold and plat­inum plat­ed jew­ellery and gift items.

“I cre­at­ed an event where I had lit­tle food on sale. I had give-aways from cer­tain com­pa­nies. And I had my spe­cials. So things have been good for me,” Ra­goo­nanan said.

“Nor­mal­ly I would be at the Di­vali Na­gar site, over the years I have been there and I have had my sale in the Di­vali Na­gar. Be­cause of the pan­dem­ic, I am un­able to go there so I de­cid­ed to have it at my store and ad­ver­tise it at my store so I set up and every­thing at my store and the re­sponse has been good. I have had clients from over the years who keep com­ing every year and it turned out to be re­al­ly good,” she said.

Makh Tick­lal of Makh Pot­tery in Ed­in­burgh Ch­agua­nas said while sales have been slow, he is hap­py that sales are hap­pen­ing at all.

“It sell­ing, but it sell­ing slow. I can’t com­plain. I have to thank God for the bless­ings,” Tick­lal said.

Tick­lal sells deyas and oth­er clay prod­ucts.

“Whole year we did not work so the lit­tle we now mak­ing sell­ing. Be­cause of the pan­dem­ic, we have not been work­ing. So the lit­tle that we have is sell­ing but it is sell­ing slow,” he said.

Tick­lal said cus­tomers who used to pur­chase 5,000 deyas from his store are now buy­ing 500.

He sells deyas whole­sale which oth­ers sell re­tail.

Even in the face of this small glim­mer of hope with some sales and in­come, ban­dits robbed Tick­lal’s store this week.

“I could have lost my life. They took my mon­ey and still aimed the gun at me,” Tick­lal said.

The ban­dits got away with around $800 Tick­lal said.

“Light will for­ev­er over­come dark­ness. This sim­ple state­ment sym­bol­is­es vic­to­ry of good­ness over things evil, and en­light­en­ment over ig­no­rance. The light of the dim­ple deya will il­lu­mi­nate every­thing that is around it with ab­solute­ly no dis­crim­i­na­tion- a pro­found les­son to be learnt by us all.

On this aus­pi­cious night of Di­vali, rows and rows of lights are lit and all dark­ness is re­moved,” Shar­ma stat­ed.

“I feel cer­tain that soon we will over­come the cur­rent dead­ly scourge af­fect­ing our en­tire world and that, life as we all know it will re­turn to nor­mal­cy,” he said.