Shas­tri Boodan

Ven­dors at this year’s Di­vali Na­gar are an­tic­i­pat­ing larg­er crowds than in pre­vi­ous years, say­ing the height­ened pub­lic­i­ty sur­round­ing the event over the past two weeks could at­tract peo­ple who do not nor­mal­ly at­tend the an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion.

The Na­gar opens to­day and has been the sub­ject of in­creased pub­lic at­ten­tion fol­low­ing con­tro­ver­sy over spon­sor­ship from State en­ter­pris­es. How­ev­er, sev­er­al ven­dors be­lieve the spot­light could ul­ti­mate­ly ben­e­fit the event by en­cour­ag­ing more vis­i­tors to ex­pe­ri­ence its cul­tur­al and com­mer­cial at­trac­tions.

Denise Chin­pire, who has op­er­at­ed the D’s Pu­ja Store booth at Di­vali Na­gar for more than a decade, said the busi­ness ini­tial­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed to build brand aware­ness rather than de­pend on sales alone.
She not­ed that busi­ness at the Na­gar has been con­sis­tent­ly strong and has helped the store de­vel­op a loy­al cus­tomer base.

“Any pub­lic­i­ty for any event is good pub­lic­i­ty. I hope that the cit­i­zens of T&T would use this as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to come and see for them­selves what the Na­gar can of­fer,” Chin­pire said.

For Di­vali 2026, the store has in­tro­duced sev­er­al new prod­ucts, in­clud­ing scent­ed wax deyas, elec­tric deyas, wa­ter-sen­sor deyas and dec­o­ra­tive lights suit­able for year-round use.

Chin­pire said the event has played a key role in grow­ing the busi­ness, with many cus­tomers mak­ing an an­nu­al tra­di­tion of vis­it­ing her booth. She added that the store’s per­ma­nent lo­ca­tion in Cal­i­for­nia al­lows it to main­tain year-round re­la­tion­ships with cus­tomers who con­tin­ue to pur­chase prod­ucts out­side the Di­vali sea­son.

Jen­nifer Sood, who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Na­gar since its in­cep­tion, said pa­trons would con­tin­ue to at­tend as long as ven­dors of­fered qual­i­ty prod­ucts at rea­son­able prices.
Sood, who sells women’s cloth­ing and jew­ellery, said she does not ex­pect the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the event to af­fect at­ten­dance, cit­ing the wide range of at­trac­tions avail­able to vis­i­tors.

Ka­ri­na Petibabu, rep­re­sent­ing the Blue Birds Sports and Cul­tur­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion, al­so ex­pects a larg­er-than-usu­al turnout this year. She not­ed, how­ev­er, that un­favourable weath­er could af­fect at­ten­dance and vis­i­tor traf­fic at the venue.

Blue Birds, which us­es the event as a fundrais­er, is wide­ly known as Di­vali Na­gar’s top pep­per roti sell­er.

Ven­dor Saleem Khan said he had stocked the lat­est fash­ions for Di­vali 2026 and was con­fi­dent shop­pers would re­spond pos­i­tive­ly.

“Plen­ty, plen­ty, plen­ty peo­ple would come,” Khan said while dis­play­ing his mer­chan­dise.

Ro­hi­ni Ahoo­ja, who sells jew­ellery and cloth­ing, ex­pects busi­ness to be on par with pre­vi­ous years de­spite pub­lic dis­cus­sion sur­round­ing the event.

Prepa­ra­tions con­tin­ued yes­ter­day ahead of to­day’s open­ing, with a gi­ant screen in­stalled on the main stage and safe­ty bar­ri­ers erect­ed in­side the hall to pre­vent vis­i­tors from falling from an el­e­vat­ed sec­tion of the floor.

Or­gan­ised by the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture, Di­vali Na­gar is an an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion of Hin­du cul­ture, re­li­gious tra­di­tions, en­ter­tain­ment, food and com­merce, at­tract­ing vis­i­tors from across Trinidad and To­ba­go.