Men who can’t wine

So there I was in San Fernando last Saturday night, at what can best be described as “some kinda lime”, trying as best as I could to ignore the fact that the DJ’s choice of music was annoying the hell out of me. The fact that almost everyone else present was having what looked like the time of their lives, and people were dancing the night away, I concluded, was due to their generous intake of alcohol. It had nothing to do with my being something of a prude and hating Carnival — and everything associated with Carnival — so very passionately.

At any rate, this extremely charming young lady whom I had met only a few moments before, casually walked up to me and remarked: “Anil, I want to dance.” Well folks, I can’t begin to tell how proud allyuh boy felt that such a beautiful young woman would make that remark to me, ahead of all the other men present, many of whom would have been much closer to her own age. If it wasn’t a little dark, she would have seen the bewilderment etched across my face, hiding a little grin. “I read your column every week and I really like it,” she continued. She expressed an attraction to the way this column deals in a very straightforward manner with issues and with the way its author (that’s me) is inclined to “tell off” people when they fail to behave responsibly or fairly. As the young lady put it, this column sometimes “writes-up” people. It really couldn’t get better than that, I began to think. Could it be that Who Vex Lorse had gained me at least one admiring fan. A gem among the vast field of harsh critics, I wondered.

But my mother and my teachers at school always used to admonish that one ought to hear the “whole story” before jumping to conclusions. Their admonition came rushing back to me as the young dame added: “I want to dance, but I don’t want you to write about me.”
Well ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and foes, whereas only a few seconds before I was thinking all my Christmases had come at once, it appeared just then that it wasn’t Christmas at all. It was simply that I couldn’t seem to escape the Carnival “ole mas”.
After bursting into laughter, I duly gave a commitment to my singular fan that she would not feature in any of my columns. Immediately she faded into the crowd and joined the others who were having a ball on the dance floor, assured that she would not be “written-up” today. I can only imagine the horror with which she must now be reading these lines, terrified to go further. Read on sweetheart, read on.

I myself could only take a large gulp of beer, pondering what might have happened if I had acted hastily and rushed to engage the young lady in complex dance manoeuvevres. A hard public slap might have been in store for me. As I watched her for a few seconds, moving gracefully out of time with the insane music, I contemplated as well, how lucky I was not to have been part of her dance plans. Never having danced in my life, a twirl with that young lady — or with anyone — could have turned out quite entertaining for those viewing; humiliating for poor me.So having already reneged on my promise (by way of the preceeding lines) not to write about the young lady, all that is left is for me to identify her by name. Her name isssssssss....Right!

Now that I think about it though, I can’t imagine what would have caused the young lady to be concerned that her dancing would have prompted me to write about it. I’d hate to think it was simply the way she (and perhaps other readers) think of this column — one designed to ‘write-up’ people. Her dancing wasn’t particularly provocative; it wasn’t lewd or inappropriate. In fact, it was quite tame. Perhaps her “tame” mode of conduct was the source of concern to her. It certainly would have set her apart from what we were treated to on Monday and Tuesday on the streets, even on our television sets. I’ve already admitted to being a “non-dancing” prude, but nobody could convince me that the kind of behaviour we witnessed over the days of Carnival could ever be regarded as dancing.

Those people among us who know about and who can dance must feel extremely insulted that their art form should be compared with what passes at Carnival. But then why should anybody be surprised? When people are prepared to go to fete on Jouvert morning with knives and cutlasses, as police searches uncovered, aren’t we to expect the worst kind of behaviour? I like to think I’m a liberal kind of prude. I don’t even mind adults taking “a little wine” if they want to. But the kind of wine that’s displayed every Carnival — and which appears to get worse with each Carnival that passes — was best described by one former Minister of Government as something that “should be left in the bedroom”. Poor lady was almost crucified for making the comment.And have any of you taken notice of the way very young children, female especially, have mastered the wine? At nine years old and at ten years old, we smile and encourage them to do it. When they get to 16 years or 17 years or 18 years old, we want to kill them for doing it. Makes perfect sense. Hope all of you enjoyed your few days of lunacy. Could we all now just return to a state of sobriety? “One must listen to criticism without annoyance because the critic is not your enemy but is helping you clean the rubbish from your life.” — Sant Kabir.