Divali Nagar opens to modest crowds amid funding controversy

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

The Di­vali Na­gar opened to the pub­lic last evening, but the first few hours saw a rel­a­tive­ly mod­est turnout, with sev­er­al booths still be­ing set up and lit­tle ac­tiv­i­ty across the fes­ti­val grounds.

Guardian Me­dia ar­rived short­ly af­ter 5 pm and re­mained at the Na­gar for about an hour and a half. Dur­ing that time, there were no sig­nif­i­cant crowds, long queues at food stalls or no­tice­able traf­fic con­ges­tion.

While rain af­fect­ed oth­er parts of the coun­try, there was no rain­fall at the Na­gar dur­ing the vis­it.

Some ven­dors were still prepar­ing their booths, while oth­ers had yet to be­gin op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, traf­fic arrange­ments were in place, with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) im­ple­ment­ing re­stric­tions and up­dat­ed no-park­ing arrange­ments along Narsa­loo Ra­maya Road and the near­by high­way.

The rel­a­tive­ly qui­et open­ing comes against the back­drop of con­tro­ver­sy be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), which or­gan­is­es the an­nu­al fes­ti­val.

Ear­li­er this week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the NCIC of dis­hon­esty for fail­ing to dis­close that it had ap­plied for and would re­ceive $500,000 in gov­ern­ment fund­ing for this year’s cel­e­bra­tions while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly seek­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port from sev­er­al state en­ter­pris­es.

She al­so vowed to put an end to what she de­scribed as “swine be­hav­iour”.

The con­tro­ver­sy fol­lowed an an­nounce­ment by the NCIC last week that Blue Wa­ters had in­creased its fi­nan­cial com­mit­ment to the fes­ti­val, be­com­ing an of­fi­cial Di­a­mond spon­sor for its 40th an­niver­sary.

The de­vel­op­ment came af­ter sev­er­al State agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB), Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT), First Cit­i­zens Bank and Na­tion­al Flour Mills, with­drew their spon­sor­ship.

De­spite the sub­dued open­ing, some ven­dors re­mained op­ti­mistic that pa­tron­age would in­crease as the evening pro­gressed.

Denise Chin­pire O’Reil­ly, who op­er­ates D’s Pu­ja and Va­ri­ety Store at Booth 20 and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Na­gar for more than a decade, ac­knowl­edged that the turnout was be­low what ven­dors had come to ex­pect.

“It’s safe to say it’s a lit­tle bit less than what we are ac­cus­tomed to, but I am hope­ful. The weath­er is not at its best. I am hope­ful that when the weath­er clears up lat­er this (yes­ter­day) af­ter­noon, month-end traf­fic, peo­ple will show up lat­er on tonight (last night) be­cause Di­vali Na­gar is an at­trac­tion that every­body wants to come to.”

O’Reil­ly de­scribed the Na­gar as an im­por­tant gath­er­ing for Hin­dus, com­par­ing its sig­nif­i­cance to Christ­mas in the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty.

Asked whether the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the NCIC could have af­fect­ed at­ten­dance, O’Reil­ly said she could not speak to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s in­ter­nal af­fairs but had no­ticed some new faces among vis­i­tors.

“Be­cause I’m not part of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, I don’t know if that con­tributed or it prob­a­bly had oth­er fac­tors. But, I am al­so see­ing a lot of new peo­ple here who I would not have seen in the past cou­ple of years. So, maybe it’s a bless­ing in dis­guise ... Change is al­ways great, eh.”

Jen­nifer Sood, own­er of Meena Bazaar, who has been par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Na­gar since its in­cep­tion, was al­so con­fi­dent that at­ten­dance would in­crease.

She said the open­ing day was not usu­al­ly the busiest and be­lieved com­pet­i­tive pric­ing would con­tin­ue to at­tract shop­pers and food en­thu­si­asts.

Sood said she did not be­lieve the Prime Min­is­ter’s crit­i­cism of the NCIC would un­der­mine the fes­ti­val’s re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance or dis­cour­age peo­ple from at­tend­ing.

“The show must go on,” she stat­ed.

For Don­ny Rogers, own­er of Farm Fresh Dairy Prod­ucts, the changes at this year’s Na­gar have al­so cre­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for small­er busi­ness­es.

He said some larg­er booths had been re­placed by small­er spaces, mak­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion more af­ford­able and al­low­ing new­er busi­ness­es to gain ex­po­sure.

“We are see­ing small­er busi­ness­es com­ing up be­cause the booths are a lit­tle bit more af­ford­able now. So, you’re see­ing a lot more new­er busi­ness­es com­ing and get­ting the ex­po­sure. In my book, I will sup­port any­thing for the pro­mo­tion of SMEs.”

Rogers de­clined to com­ment on the Prime Min­is­ter’s crit­i­cism of the NCIC but said he had not no­ticed a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence in at­ten­dance.

He said the fes­ti­val re­mained a valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty for busi­ness­es to reach a large au­di­ence, de­spite the work in­volved in par­tic­i­pat­ing.

“I don’t know of any booth hold­ers who com­plain in­side of here. It gives you ex­po­sure—400,000 peo­ple in nine days is a lot of ex­po­sure for your busi­ness. So, some­times it’s not about the mon­e­tary val­ue you get in your hand.”

The 40th edi­tion of Di­vali Na­gar runs from Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 7.