Indian culture, which lies at the heart of Indian experience, has given its people an identity and character which helped them to retain their identity.
This view was expressed by India’s High Commissioner to Guyana, Avinash Gupta at a ceremony at the National Cultural Centre last week to mark the 29th anniversary of the establishment of the Indian Cultural Centre here.
“India’s culture lies at the heart of Indian experience. This culture which bloomed thousands of years ago, has given the people of India as well as the people of Indian origin, an identity and character which have helped them to retain their integrity through the passage of time and changes in human consciousness.
“Dance and music, perhaps, are the oldest arts evolved by man, and no historian can exactly pinpoint the era in which they originated. In fact, dance, like music, is an instinct, some compelling emotions within us, that urges us to find an expression. And that perhaps is the reason that people cling to music or dance on all occasions … joyous or painful,” the High Commissioner declared.
He further asserted that beneath the manifold diversity of physical features, ethnic groups, languages and dialects, and religions in India, there has always existed an underlying uniformity of life.
Gupta observed that the cultural performances at the ceremony presented a brief but vivid account of the cultural unity in diversity that has evolved over the ages and of the contributions made to it by the various movements, eastern or western, that came to bear on the country.
The ICC located was established in the 1975 to propagate Indian culture in Guyana and has been in involved in other activities in and out of Georgetown as well as in other countries accredited to Guyana.
Since its inception the ICC has been conducting classes in kathak dancing, tabla playing and in yoga.
The ICC also has a well stocked library featuring books on various aspects of Indian culture including philosophy, religion and history among others