Ky­ron Reg­is

Di­vali, the Hin­du fes­ti­val of lights, has en­joyed strong ties to T&T’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty over the years, ac­cord­ing to Aneela Bhag­wat, a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC).

“Lak­sh­mi is the god­dess of wealth, so there is a re­la­tion­ship be­tween Di­vali and com­merce,” she ex­plained. “When peo­ple say that Di­vali is the Hin­du new year, of­ten what that meant, was that it marked the new year for busi­ness peo­ple. For ex­am­ple, it was the new year in terms of busi­ness when they re-did their books. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the be­gin­ning of the new busi­ness year was Di­vali.”

Bhag­wat said Di­vali Na­gar, which end­ed yes­ter­day has played a huge role over the years in trans­form­ing the Hin­du re­li­gious fes­ti­val in­to a promi­nent busi­ness hol­i­day. In fact, she point­ed out, that was one of the rea­sons for the launch of the ten-day fes­ti­val in 1986—to in­spire busi­ness­es in Ch­agua­nas to at­tract peo­ple in the same way busi­ness­es do for Christ­mas.

Among the prepa­ra­tions done by busi­ness own­ers for Di­vali is Lak­sh­mi pu­ja, a prayer cel­e­bra­tion to Moth­er Lak­sh­mi. Bhag­wat said her par­ents, who are Hin­du busi­ness peo­ple, own a gold coin which they put on dis­play to rep­re­sent Moth­er Lak­sh­mi, the de­ity of pros­per­i­ty.

“One of the things peo­ple do is that they light nine deyas in their house. Nine deeyas are sup­posed to be in places that you want wealth, so peo­ple put it by their wa­ter tanks be­cause you al­ways want to have wa­ter. You put it in the kitchen be­cause you al­ways want to have food. Oth­er peo­ple put it in places that they store mon­ey as well. If you have a busi­ness, you put it at your cash reg­is­ter be­cause you want to at­tract wealth,” she said.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who takes part in Di­vali Na­gar every year, said in spite of the re­cent flood­ing a lot of small busi­ness­es were rep­re­sent­ed at this year’s event.

“I know from my own con­stituen­cy a lot of peo­ple come up and they make pep­per roti and oth­er small busi­ness en­deav­ours,” she said

“This year may not be as great as their past years. How­ev­er, there is a good com­bi­na­tion of lo­cal busi­ness con­tent from the small busi­ness sec­tor and the larg­er busi­ness sec­tor.”

“This Na­gar was a one night some­thing and has rolled in­to this fab­u­lous one-week event. It is some­thing I think we can mar­ket more as a tourist at­trac­tion and we can make far more mon­ey It will be bet­ter for the econ­o­my with forex and so on. But we don’t spend enough time mar­ket­ing Di­vali and I think so much more can be done.”

Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce Vish­nu Char­ran said a va­ri­ety of busi­ness­es, in­clud­ing cloth­ing stores, en­joy thriv­ing trade Di­vali.

He said dur­ing the pe­ri­od lead­ing up to the fes­ti­val, su­per­mar­kets, veg­etable mar­kets and cater­ers are very busy as peo­ple pur­chase food to pro­vide or sup­ply to homes, busi­ness­es or func­tions.