East Indian Festival highlights forgotten culture

If your last name is Mangar, Parham, Ramclam, Guy or Supaul, chances are that you were represented at the Belize City House of Culture today taking part in the first annual East Indian Festival. News Five’s Alyssa Noble got in the spirit.

Alyssa Noble, Reporting
They are often referred to as ?Coolies?, and today, this community, once thought to be small in number, showed up in full force to commemorate their presence in a country far away from that of their ancestors.

?Between 1845 and 1917 over forty-one thousand East Indians came to Belize as indentured labourers from India. And over a hundred years later, this community is gathering for the first time to celebrate and share their culture with the rest of us.?

Cancy Ramclam, President, East Indian Council?Toledo
?Well we want to promote our culture, and we want to get back from way back, everything that happened. We lost out culture, we lost our language and we want to try to promote that and get it back.?

Phyllis Butler, Activities Coordinator, NICH, H.O.C.
?We collaborated with the East Indian community from Punta Gorda and Belize City. We tried to get Corozal involved, but hopefully next year that will happen. It entails the organizing of this event. A lot of logistic in getting the delegation from P.G. to come down. Also getting the grass root people, those are the main people that help organize festivals, to get their food prepare and to get the music together. Also to help our young East Indians that they may understand and learn more about their culture, about their people, about their practices and about their belief.?

And one highlight of their culture is obviously the food …

Food Vendor
?This is the potato pound, we have the cassava pudding, the bread pudding, the banana cake, and the regular cake. And over here we have curry chicken and we have some split beans over here. The white rice is coming and the tortilla is coming too.?

Alyssa Noble
?So all of these are typical East Indian food??

Food Vendor
?Yes. This is the dessert section and over there is the dinner piece, so these are the sweets.?

Alyssa Noble
?What would you say are the staple East Indian foods??

Food Vendor
?I would say the split peas with taccari chicken or sometimes we have the taccari fish, shrimp. The white rice is main part of any food. We usually have the vegetables on the side, and there you have it.?

Sumathi Restaurant Representative
?This is nan, somosas, butter chicken, tandoori chicken, white rice and some pickles.?

Alyssa Noble
?Are these typical Indian favourites??

Sumathi Restaurant Representative
?Indian favourites, yes, the butter chicken, somosas and tandoori chicken.?

But aside from appetizing dishes, the East Indian Community brought out a host of other cultural items and adornments.

Cancy Ramclam
?We have a lot of cultural things we bought all the way from the south to show the people what our ancestors used to use, and what some of us still use in Toledo.?

Rakhi Bhojwani, Organizer
?Well this is Indian jewellery. I just wanted to show the East Indians, Indians and the Belizeans here, our Indian jewellery, our Indian costumes, and celebrate with them and share everything with them. This is our traditional Indian jewellery with earrings and the big necklace. Usually we wear it for weddings, for parties and for dances. India represents a lot of jewellery and clothing. We are very well known for our clothing and jewellery.?

They are also well known for their dances…

And as for the visitors…

Visitor #1
?I?m enjoying the festival very much.?

Visitor #2
?I like the food, it?s interesting. I like the clothing. I have studied the Indian culture, and I have been asking you know, what part of India they are from and so far I haven?t gotten the answer yet. But it looks lovely, and I am enjoying myself.?

In case you?re feeling as if you missed out, don?t worry…

Alyssa Noble
?Is there going to be a next one, next year??

Cancy Ramclam
?Well if all goes well this year, which you can look around and see, I certainly think we?ll have another one next year.?

Alyssa Noble reporting for News Five.

In the booth competition first place went to Estelle Ramclam’s P.G. Kitchen, while two second prizes were awarded, one to Port Loyola’s Hazel King and the other to Cansy Ramclam with her P.G. display.