Hosay Caribbean -Satnarine Balkaransingh

Hosay Caribbean: Tadjahs on Wheels, (Mobile Mausoleums of Muharram) is a dynamic, multi-layered narrative of the South-East Asian story of the ill treatment and assassinations, especially of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed P.b.u.h, upholding the principle of justice. Successive events later resulted in an annual, ritual commemoration or ‘passion play’, dramatized street pageantry, held during the first ten days of the Islamic month of Muharram. This Muhurram travelled from Iraq, to Iran, to India and to the Caribbean in the 19th century, during the Indian Indentureship period.

The book articulates a complex dynamic of traditions, mysticism, changing aesthetic designs, culinary fare and modernity across time and space in a multitudinous and unpredictable range of ways. These include African and Creole elements and cultural influences, all converging to create a rich, hybridized, cultural expression, providing an all-inclusive Caribbean identity and ethos ... a major new fascinating contribution to the socio-cultural practice of Hosay in India, the Multicultural Caribbean and their ever-expanding diasporas.