RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Clay pot­ters have re­duced the num­ber of deyas they pro­duce by 50 per cent, say­ing it was more lu­cra­tive to pro­duce clay gar­den pots this year, rather than deyas.

The clay pots, which vary in size, are used for the cel­e­bra­tion of Di­vali, pop­u­lar­ly known as the Fes­ti­val of Lights.

But with mass cel­e­bra­tions in jeop­ardy be­cause of COVID-19 re­stric­tions, pot­tery shop own­ers say deya sales have been abysmal this year.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Don­ny Ben­ny, the own­er of Don­ny’s Pot­tery said they were hope­ful that sales would pick up near­er to No­vem­ber 14 when the cel­e­bra­tions are held.

Ben­ny said al­though sales were slow, the price of the deyas had stayed the same com­pared to last year.

“We know that Di­vali will not be cel­e­brat­ed on a grand scale this year so we have cut the num­ber of deyas we make by half,” he said. Un­like oth­er pot­tery man­u­fac­tur­ers, Ben­ny said none of his staff has been ter­mi­nat­ed.

“We know that times are hard so are we try­ing our best to ral­ly through,” he said.

He ex­plained that many peo­ple had lost jobs so they now had the time to do kitchen gar­den­ing and land­scap­ing. 

“We are see­ing peo­ple buy­ing gar­den pots rather than deyas so we are mak­ing pots to suit that de­mand,” he added.

Own­er of Radi­ka’s Pot­tery, Andy Ben­ny said his pro­duc­tion of deyas was al­so cut off by 50 per cent.

“Usu­al­ly we start mak­ing the deyas four or five months be­fore Di­vali but this year it was not like that.” He said since March he has re­tained his work­force even though it was not fi­nan­cial­ly fea­si­ble to do so.

“My work­ers have been with me for many years. I could not lay them off. Since March when COVID re­stric­tions start­ed I con­tin­ued to pay them four days per week,” he said.

Andy said be­cause thou­sands of peo­ple are af­fect­ed by the eco­nom­ic down­turn, he felt it was im­por­tant for the gov­ern­ment to pro­mote Di­vali some more.

“En­cour­age peo­ple to cel­e­brate on a small scale. We know peo­ple have less mon­ey to spend. As much as re­open­ing the coun­try sounds dan­ger­ous we have to con­sid­er the psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pact this is hav­ing on fam­i­lies,” he said.

Mean­while, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Sanathan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Vi­jay Ma­haraj said it is un­like­ly that there will be any mass cel­e­bra­tions this year once COVID-19 re­stric­tions re­main in ef­fect.

He said Ram­leela ac­tiv­i­ties were al­so at a stand­still. Di­vali is usu­al­ly pre­ced­ed by the pub­lic por­tray­al of Ram­leela, which de­picts the sto­ry of Lord Ra­ma and the res­cue of his wife See­ta, af­ter her ab­duc­tion by the de­mon king Ra­vana.

Asked whether there will be any vir­tu­al cel­e­bra­tions, Ma­haraj said no.

He ex­plained that Ram­leela is a mass por­tray­al and even if the drama­ti­sa­tion was be­ing done vir­tu­al­ly, it would re­quire too many par­tic­i­pants to be in the same place at the same time.

Ma­haraj said once the Prime Min­is­ter lifts some of the re­stric­tions, the SDMS will be able to give a clear in­di­ca­tion as to how the fes­ti­val of lights will be cel­e­brat­ed.

Mean­while, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) De­ok­i­nanan Shar­ma al­so con­firmed there will be no grand Di­vali Na­gar cel­e­bra­tions this year. 

Apart from COVID-19 re­stric­tions, Shar­ma said they had no fi­nances to put out the grand show which usu­al­ly costs be­tween $4-5 mil­lion. Say­ing there is a great eco­nom­ic fall­out be­cause of COVID-129, Shar­ma said thou­sands of peo­ple are be­ing af­fect­ed.