Cul­tur­al clas­sics en­joyed the spot­light at this year's re­turn of the Di­vali Na­gar, as the first phys­i­cal it­er­a­tion of the long-cel­e­brat­ed fes­ti­val in the post-pan­dem­ic era saw a daz­zling ar­ray of tal­ent that paid trib­ute to the clas­si­cal side of East In­di­an cul­ture. Much of that el­e­va­tion of the clas­sics came from younger per­form­ers and artistes.

Lo­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tions so­lu­tions provider and ded­i­cat­ed cul­tur­al sup­port­er, bmo­bile, award­ed one-year mo­bile and da­ta pack­ages to the Di­vali Na­gar 2022 Youth Champ and Dance com­pe­ti­tions win­ners.

Se­nior Man­ag­er for Cor­po­rate, En­vi­ron­men­tal, So­cial & Rep­u­ta­tion Man­age­ment, Khamal Georges, notes bmo­bile has been a long-time con­trib­u­tor to the an­nu­al fes­ti­val.

Georges said TSTT was hap­py to see the fes­ti­val re­turn to its home af­ter be­ing held vir­tu­al­ly due to pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions.

Khamal Georges, TSTT's Senior Manager Corporate, Environmental, Social and Reputation Management presents Divali Nagar 2022 Dance Competition winner, Priya Persad, with her prize. [Image courtesy bmobile]

“The style, el­e­gance, grace and high lev­el of par­tic­i­pa­tion in these com­pe­ti­tions are matched on­ly by the fa­mil­ial at­mos­phere at Di­vali Na­gar. It is the health­i­est form of com­ple­tion, and this year we were al­so pleased to see that the cal­i­bre of com­pe­ti­tion was on par with the cel­e­bra­tion of tra­di­tion­al East In­di­an song and dance, proud­ly el­e­vat­ed by the younger gen­er­a­tion,” he stat­ed.

The 2022 Youth Champ win­ner, Vic­to­ria Ma­haraj, was shocked to hear that she was se­lect­ed as the best over­all per­former in the cat­e­go­ry. Vic­to­ria, 22, cur­rent­ly is read­ing for a BSc in Fi­nan­cial Man­age­ment at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.  She re­cent­ly was award­ed an open schol­ar­ship from the Uni­ver­si­ty. She is al­so a trainee at a Hin­du School but has stat­ed that mu­sic will be part of her ca­reer in the long term.

“I love to sing, es­pe­cial­ly at the tem­ple—that is what I love the most. But I en­tered Mas­tana Ba­har [com­pe­ti­tion] and won and from there thought that I could make mu­sic a part of my ca­reer too,” Vic­to­ria Ma­haraj re­vealed.

“The chal­lenge for me in the in­dus­try here though, is that I love singing Clas­si­cal In­di­an mu­sic, which has be­come un­der-ap­pre­ci­at­ed in T&T com­pared to Bol­ly­wood songs, Chut­ney and oth­er forms of mu­sic,” she not­ed.

Victoria Maharaj during her winning performance at the Divali Nagar 2022 Youth Champs competition. [Image courtesy bmobile]

Recog­nis­ing this, Vic­to­ria is best known for her it­er­a­tion of the tra­di­tion­al song ‘Om Namah Shiv­ay’. She puts her own spin and vers­es in­to the clas­sic—much to the crowd's ap­pre­ci­a­tion. The tal­ent­ed per­former cred­its her moth­er and teach­ers for their en­cour­age­ment.

“I wasn’t ex­pect­ing to win at all,” she ad­mit­ted.  “I was quite hap­py with per­form­ing and be­ing here as one big fam­i­ly back­stage with all the oth­er per­form­ers.”

She added that the one-year voice and da­ta pack­age, among the oth­er prizes award­ed, would ben­e­fit her stud­ies:

“My pro­gramme is en­tire­ly on­line, so us­ing re­li­able da­ta would be very use­ful to me in pur­su­ing my de­gree.”

The sec­ond win­ner of the week’s fes­tiv­i­ties was Priya Per­sad, a Kathak dancer who al­so plays the har­mo­ni­um and sitar among oth­er in­stru­ments, and en­joys the clas­si­cal forms of East In­di­an cul­ture.

“Many peo­ple grav­i­tate to Bol­ly­wood styles of dance now and that is fine,” Priya ob­served, “but I want to bring the clas­si­cal forms of dance like Kathak back to a wider au­di­ence in the Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.”

“The art it­self, the way the dance is done, the move­ment, the mu­sic, it brings a mood and cap­tures the au­di­ence’s at­ten­tion in a way that is unique,” she point­ed out.

Kashif Greaves, TSTT's Senior Manager Marketing, Promotions, Supply Chain & Device Life Cycle, presents a happy Victoria Maharaj with her prize for the Youth Champs competition. [Image courtesy bmobile]

Kathak orig­i­nat­ed with­in Hin­du tem­ples as a sto­ry­telling de­vice for por­tray­ing epic tales from Hin­du scrip­tures.

Priya Per­sad al­so is an au­di­tor with PwC and was grate­ful for, among oth­er prizes, the one-year bmo­bile pack­age.

“As an au­di­tor, hav­ing ac­cess to fast and re­li­able da­ta on the road, while work­ing with clients off-site is very valu­able and ap­pre­ci­at­ed,” she not­ed.

The an­nu­al Di­vali Na­gar fea­tured nine days of a bustling mar­ket­place of lo­cal ar­ti­sans and artists along­side night­ly dis­plays of cul­ture and com­pe­ti­tion. Thou­sands of vis­i­tors en­joyed the var­ied as­pects of the fes­ti­val, in­clud­ing the bmo­bile booth, which saw live­ly, fam­i­ly-friend­ly games, pro­mo­tions and com­ple­men­tary hen­na body art in keep­ing with the com­pa­ny’s con­tin­ued sup­port of all as­pects of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s many cul­tur­al facets.