PHAGWA, a Hindu religious festival filled with colours, songs, music and dance, will be celebrated in grand style throughout Trinidad and Tobago this weekend.

Major events will be hosted by the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, the National Council for Indian Culture (NCIC), the National Phagwa Association, Hindu Prachar Kendra, Hindu Seva Saangh and the Ramleela Committee of TT, at venues across the country. The main celebrations will take place on Sunday, but tomorrow all 33 schools attached to the Maha Sabha will participate in the annual Children’s Phagwa at the Tunapuna Hindu School.

One of the biggest events of the weekend will take place at the Aranjuez Savannah where the National Phagwa Council has teamed with103FM for the celebrations. Approximately 60 groups are expected to cross the big stage this year.

Over the past few days, 103FM, in an effort to promote awareness and exposure of the festival, has produced several features and programmes exploring the history and cultural richness of Phagwa.

Interested groups can log onto 103fm.net for more information. Phagwa celebrations organised by the Williamsville Festivals Committee (WFC) will take place on Sunday at the Brother’s Recreation Ground, Garth Road, Williamsville, from 3 pm. According to Hanooman Singh, theWFC, has collaborated with mandirs and interest groups, including the Princes Town Regional Corporation, for the event. The main event there will be a chowtal contest where the winner will take home a cash prize of $5,000.

Members of Lothians Road Youth Movement in Princes Town will be hosting their first Phagwa celebrations at the Lothians Road Recreation Ground..

The Hindu Prachar Kendra (HPK) has shifted their celebrations from the usual Divali Nagar Site to the Kendra's headquarters at Gilibia Trace, Raghunanan Road, off the Southern Main Road, Enterprise, Chaguanas. Chief coordinator of this event Geeta Ramsingh, said Phagwa will unfold over a two-day period to facilitate all the spiritual observances connected to this religious event.

Tomorrow’s activities get going at 6 pm and on Sunday the celebrations start at 3pm. The stage is set for TT’s leading pichakaree singers to compete for top prizes this year. Among this year’s competitors is Ramsingh herself, as well as past winners Mohip Poonwassie, Mukesh Babooram, Pundit Bisram Siewdath, and Jagdeo Phagoo.

The observance of Phagwa, or Holi as it is known, was introduced to Trinidad by indentured East Indian labourers around 1845. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chowtal groups were growing in numbers in Trinidad and Tobago.

Cultural activist Rambally Parray (1868-1940), an indentured labourer from India, and his sons Latchmi Narine and Ramnarine Parray, played prominent roles in the festival’s development. Celebrants at that time played in their villages and roadways where they lived. The formation of The National Phagwa Council of Trinidad and Tobago in 1967 ushered in a new dimension to the celebration at the Aranjuez Savannah.

Phagwa is celebrated with the throwing of abir and gulal (dusts), in all possible colours. The squirting of coloured water using pichkaris (plastic pumps) is common. Coloured water is prepared using Tesu flowers, which are first gathered from the trees, dried in the sun, and then ground up and mixed with water to produce a coloured liquid.

The origin of Phagwa or Holi can be traced to the Hindu holy scriptures Vishnu Purana in which there is the story of an evil King Hiranyakashipu who wanted to destroy his own son Prahalad for worshipping God and not himself (the king).

According to the scriptures, Hiranyakashipu plotted with his sister Holika to destroy the child Prahalad by fire, for being disobedient to him. Instead, Holika perished in the inferno while Prahalad survived, thus establishing victory for good deeds over evil.