Belfon has defiled the sari

The Editor: Denise Belfon’s mockery of the sari on Boxing Night deserves a strong response. Her attitude was insulting and unacceptable, and the young women of WARD are deeply offended. Every year at Carnival time Indian culture and tradition are relentlessly ridiculed by certain local entertainers, and it seems that this appalling trend will continue into the 2004 season. The salacious Belfon fired the starter’s pistol to scorn Indo culture when she wore a sari and Indian jewelry to perform her newest hit at the Soca Switch show at the Queen’s Park Savannah. This woman,  proceeded to disrespect the sari in front of a mindless, decadent audience. Frankly, Denise Belfon was wrong and out of place to wear one at a soca show with its ambience of madness and revelry. The resplendent sari is the epitome of elegance and purity, modesty and beauty, dignity and grace. Belfon  has disrespected Indian womanhood.

A sari should never be worn to entertain a rowdy mob of youths who, in their drunken and drugged stupor, will be encouraged to mock the graceful movements of Indian dance. A sari should not be worn in an enviroment of ear-splitting cacophony called soca music. A sari should not be worn on stage before a mass of people who know nothing of its significance. A sari should should never be associated with bacchanalia. The memebers of WARD demand that Belfon show some respect for the sari. She and her gang should change their manic attitude and refrain from desecrating the sari again. Belfon can get on as bad as she wants for Carnival, but she must leave the sari alone.
 
Shivanna Dipnarine, Anna Lisa Basoo, Kavita Ramnarinesingh, Julie Bickram, Riya Hosein and Vishanti Mahabir for WARD - Women Against Racism
and Dictatorship. cherry_almond@rediffmail.com