Kendra Community Marks 33 Years of Phagwa Celebrations
Hindus across Trinidad and Tobago gathered on Sunday to participate in Phagwa celebrations.
In Central Trinidad, the Kendra community in Enterprise celebrated the annual festival by throwing flower petals along with the traditional abeer.
This was the third year the Kendra community harvested tens of thousands of bougainvillea petals as an added feature to enhance their Phagwa celebrations.
President of the Prachaar Kendra, Geeta Vahini, said the group decided to take a different approach to this year’s Phagwa activities.
« This is experimental for us. We’ve merged two events into one, the Holika Dahan as well as the abeer playing, Sunday’s Pichakaree and all the other traditional features. And we found it’s a good event, the way it’s working. So we are very, very happy for the very large turnout that we had tonight and we hope it continues to grow. »
Pichakaree is an Indo-Trinidadian form of music. One of the local artistes, Mohip Poonwassie, shared a bit about the art form.
‘Pichakaree’ in essence is basically similar to the Pichakaree pump, which is the syringe-like device that one would usually pull abeer into and spray onto the onlookers. And the basic concept behind that is that when the lyrics are sprayed through the Pichakaree song it leaves a stain, a mark on the minds of the recipients. And this is the wonderful thing, the beauty of the Pichakaree. »
Mr. Poonwassie noted that Kendra also focused on the nation-building side of the music.
« The lyrics, basically, are not just any lyrics. It’s positive lyrics. It’s lyrics geared towards elevating and not denigrating people, you know. It’s about educating the masses, and not just Hindus and Indians. It’s a Trinbagonian thing. »
This year the Kendra community celebrated 33 years of Phagwa celebrations.
