Sant Na­gar Hin­du Tem­ple, San­gre Grande, un­der the aus­pices of Pt Bhow­nath Maraj kicked off their Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions on Fri­day evening at the San­gre Grande Hin­du School Grounds on Rosseau Street. This year marks their 33rd Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tion.

Pt Maraj nar­rat­ed the scenes, and stu­dents of San­gre Grande Hin­du School, present and past, en­act­ed the roles.

Rolling Boys Tas­sa Group pro­vid­ed the drum­ming for the var­i­ous scenes.

Shar­main Ma­haraj, prin­ci­pal of the school, gave the wel­com­ing re­marks.

Ram­leela fes­ti­val is the play of Lord Ra­ma ver­sus Rawan in an epic bat­tle of good ver­sus evil.

This play will be con­duct­ed over ten days and is one as­pect of com­mu­ni­ty tourism that is alive and well to­day in rur­al Trinidad, bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er for a cap­ti­vat­ing per­for­mance.

The cel­e­bra­tion will end with the burn­ing of a gi­ant-sized ef­fi­gy of the vil­lain in the sto­ry, Rawan.

Pt Maraj an­nounced that the cos­tumes used by the play­ers will be dis­played at the mu­se­um in Port-of-Spain.–Ralph Ban­warie