Basant Panchmi celebrated in the Caribbean

Basant Panchmi celebrated in the Caribbean
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NDTV Correspondent

Thursday, February 2, 2006 (Tobago):


Basant Panchmi was celebrated thousands of miles away in Trinidad and Tobago, but with a Caribbean touch.

Almost half the population of the island is of Indian origin.

They are the descendants of indentured labourers who were taken from the villages of UP and Bihar about 350 years ago to work in the sugarcane fields of Trinidad and Tobago.

Centuries later, what has been preserved down the generations, is the religious and cultural rituals that the Indian people carried with them.

But the mode of expression of the rituals is distinctly Caribbean.