History of Phagwah celebration in NY

BY VISHNU BISRAM

New York City’s Phagwah celebration this weekend brings back memories of early celebrations among the Caribbean communities in the city when there was nowhere to celebrate the festival outdoors and when people looked at you funny for having powder or red substance on your face or hair. It was unheard of to celebrate Phagwah in public. The celebration started out small during the 1970s indoors, and expanded over the years to larger indoor locations (like school auditoriums) and then outdoors during the late 1980s, resulting in the Phagwah Parade (1990) involving tens of thousands of celebrants of all nationalities.

A sprinkling of Indo- Caribbeans began settling in NY in the late 1960s, but it was during the 1970s that they started observing the Phagwah festival in residential apartments and hotel rooms (like Clarke Apartments in Manhattan), where Guyanese and Trinis would come together for a prayer, throw powder on each other, and have a hearty meal. During the late 1970s, temples were established and the celebrations were held in the temples in a somewhat subdued atmosphere mostly with talc powder and careful use of abeer and abrack without messing the walls and floors of the temples (which were located in basements of buildings during the 1970s and 1980s, or in apartments).

Pt Oumadatt’s Mahatma Gandhi Satsangh was one of the earliest temples located in the South Bronx (Townsend Ave) in the early 1980s. It held Sunday services and observances for auspicious festivals for Guyanese and Trinis seeking spiritual upliftment.

For Holi, celebrants would come to his mandir for prayers, chowtaal singing and bhojan. Similar services were held for Diwali. Other temples were set up later on in the other Boroughs celebrating the festivals. Thousands of Guyanese were settled in the area, and they would show up for Sunday morning havan service, and on the evenings of auspicious days in the Hindu calendars.

Even Guyanese Christians who felt lonely in NY during the 1970s and 1980s came for the religious service and the Lord’s blessings. Phagwah was celebrated at the temple’s yard on the Sunday before or after the official observance.

In Queens, Pandit Jadonath held worshipping service that attracted a significant following in Far Rockaway and later in Richmond Hill. In Brooklyn, on Ave D, near Foster Ave, the huge basement of a tenement building owned by Guyanese, served as a make- shift temple where Phagwah was observed in a somewhat subdued manner.

The Arya Samajists also had a temple with the large basement of Vishnu Bandhu’s furniture store on Broadway used for Phagwah celebration. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the few temples hosted chowtal singing on weekends and on Phagwah evening with celebrants using talc powder instead of abeer to sprinkle on one another. Some members of the temples also hosted satsanghs (prayer services) and dinners in their homes accompanied by chowtal singing.

At City College, where there were a couple hundred Indo- Caribbean students during the late 1970s and early 1980s (the Guyanese and other Indo- Caribbean population swelled thereafter rising to hundreds) we observed the festival in a non- traditional way. At first, in 1978, we celebrated it as members of the India Club (founded some years before by students from India) with prayers and distribution of mitai (Indian made sweets) and some of us brought vegetarian foods, including gulgula, from home for the celebrants. I would purchase jalebi and burfi to share with celebrants. There was no abeer, only talc powder thrown on each other.

Later, those of us at CCNY formed our own organisation, called Indo Club, distinct from the India Club and subsequently we also formed the Social and Cultural Association of Indians. After that bunch of us from the 1970s graduated, the Indo Club and Social and Cultural Organsation became defunct and another organisation took their place.

At times, my colleague Vassan would organise the showing of a Bollywood movie. Foods included traditional delicacies like baiganee and plantainee, which I prepared.

Some students came armed with dry abeer and powder. Later, coloured liquid abeer was introduced in the celebration on campus. A few non-Indians and non- Hindus would become involved in the celebration.

In 1990, the parade was launched in Richmond Hill, where tens of thousands of Guyanese had made their home.

Today, the area is home to about 200,000 Indo- Caribbeans and another 50,000 South Asians. Another 100,000 Indo- Caribbeans live in the metro area. As an outdoor celebration, people felt unrestrained in using abeer, powder and other Phagwah paraphernalia.

Today, the parade attracts about 30,000. In the past, people used to look at Phagwah celebrants as being weird for having their faces smeared with colours.