Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad has praised the or­gan­is­ers of the Green Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions for stag­ing an elab­o­rate cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion with­out State fund­ing.

Speak­ing on the ninth night of the cel­e­bra­tions at Palmiste Park, Seep­er­sad said the achieve­ment demon­strat­ed the strength of com­mu­ni­ty spir­it, col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and self-re­liance.

“Each year, you un­der­take the for­mi­da­ble task of stag­ing a the­atri­cal pro­duc­tion over sev­er­al nights, co­or­di­nat­ing re­hearsals, cos­tumes, sets, light­ing and sound, and de­vot­ing count­less hours to prepa­ra­tion,” he said.

“What makes this achieve­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly in­spir­ing is that it is ac­com­plished with­out State fund­ing. In­stead, you draw up­on the gen­eros­i­ty, in­ge­nu­ity and tal­ents of your mem­bers and sup­port­ers. Some con­tribute fi­nan­cial­ly; oth­ers of­fer tech­ni­cal, man­age­r­i­al, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al, culi­nary or the­atri­cal ex­per­tise. To­geth­er, these in­di­vid­ual con­tri­bu­tions pro­duce some­thing ex­tra­or­di­nary.”

Seep­er­sad said the event showed that a com­mu­ni­ty’s great­est re­source was not nec­es­sar­i­ly its wealth, but the peo­ple who be­lieved in its pur­pose.

“There is a pro­found les­son here for us all. We some­times un­der­es­ti­mate what cit­i­zens can ac­com­plish when unit­ed by a shared vi­sion and the de­ter­mi­na­tion to re­alise it. Yet with­in our com­mu­ni­ties lies an im­mense reser­voir of tal­ent, cre­ativ­i­ty, gen­eros­i­ty and good­will,” he said.

He said self-re­liance did not mean stand­ing alone, but recog­nis­ing that peo­ple col­lec­tive­ly had the ca­pac­i­ty to shape their cir­cum­stances and strength­en their com­mu­ni­ties.

Seep­er­sad not­ed that the Ra­mayan al­so high­light­ed this mes­sage: Lord Ra­ma’s jour­ney was not un­der­tak­en in iso­la­tion.

“His ul­ti­mate vic­to­ry de­pend­ed up­on the loy­al­ty, courage and di­verse con­tri­bu­tions of oth­ers unit­ed in a com­mon pur­pose,” he said.

Prais­ing the or­gan­is­ers, Seep­er­sad said their ef­forts ex­em­pli­fied the tri­umph of com­mu­ni­ty spir­it over lim­i­ta­tion, de­ter­mi­na­tion over dif­fi­cul­ty, and col­lec­tive en­deav­our over in­di­vid­ual con­straint.

“They pre­serve our tra­di­tions, nur­ture young tal­ent, strength­en the bonds be­tween gen­er­a­tions and re­mind us that cul­tur­al her­itage is not mere­ly an in­her­i­tance to be cher­ished, but a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to be ful­filled,” he said.

He ex­pressed hope that their ex­am­ple would in­spire com­mu­ni­ties through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go to recog­nise their own ca­pac­i­ty for great­ness.

His com­ments came af­ter the State’s de­ci­sion to with­draw fund­ing for this year’s Di­vali Na­gar, which opens on Oc­to­ber 30 and was ex­pect­ed to cost about $5 mil­lion. The Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) has since an­nounced that Blue Wa­ters is an of­fi­cial Di­a­mond Spon­sor of the Na­gar.