CSM promoter George Singh told the gathering that chutney music unites people, “building bridges beyond politics and religion”.

“It is the melting pot of TT’s music and it has grown to be one of the most anticipated events in Carnival after 21 years,” Singh said adding that events such as CSM help promote the local music industry on the world stage.

He outlined that Mashramani, Labor Day, Notting Hill Carnival, Caribana and other carnivals are all driven by TT’s music, and they feed off the music coming out of the CSM and the International Soca Monarch shows. With this is mind, he says, each year the challenge remains to make the event more exciting and fresh while motivating artistes to reach their highest potential.

This year, Singh introduced a new competition alongside CSM- –the “World’s Ultimate Chutney Challenge”. This contest is geared towards re-introducing the greatest ‘hits’ of yesteryear. “It is an event that will create new opportunities for some of the more seasoned artistes alongside the stars of today,” Singh said. These artistes will perform some of the biggest hits of the past using the original tune or remix the same song into a modern version.

“This can actually re-energize the music and create new excitement with songs that were chart-toppers in the early days of chutney music,” Singh said.

Ten singers were chosen by a team of professionals to sing their hits from past years — Omadath Maharaj (Ring Bang), Drupatie Ramgoonai (Mr Bissessar) Rikki Jai (Mor Tor), Sam Boodram (Lalana Kooshi), Terry Gajraj (Guyana Baboo), Rasika Dindial (Maticoor Night), Rakesh Yankarran (Mousie), Devanand Gattoo (Payalia), Chris Garcia (Chutney Bachannal) and Adesh Samaroo (Rajin Jheem Jheem Jhoom).

Rakesh, whose brother chutney music icon Anand Yankarran who was laid to rest under Hindu rites last Thursday, was chosen to perform the traditional chutney song “Mousie”. But at this time of grief, Rakesh says he cannot contemplate singing in any competition but will consider the request made by CSM and also his fans. “I am prepared to dedicate every one (song) I sing to my younger brother who died recently,” he told Sunday Newsday, adding that the Yankarrans are known for pleasing the people with the best traditional chutney and Indian classical songs.

At this time, the Yankarrans are in mourning as they pray for the soul of Anand who passed away on January 2. Singh also spoke about Anand saying the year started on a very sad note with his death, hailing the late singer as a prized jewel of the chutney and chutney soca industry. Singh noted that 28 years ago, when the song “Nanda Baba” was released, CSM started six years later.

“It is songs like these that have shaped the landscape of what we know today to be chutney and chutney soca,” he said. Anand returned to the CSM stage for a short stint in 2014 with his hit “Pak Pak”, a duet with Rikki Jai.

Reigning CSM champion KI Persad, at the launch, congratulated Singh for the work he is doing to promote local artistes, saying winners of the competition are considered celebrities in foreign countries.

Persad won the 2016 competition with “’Same Gyul Twice”.

Reshma Ramlal, who recently returned from performing in Guadeloupe, is looking forward to the Carnival season. “I believe that CSM really gives the artistes the opportunity to shine on an international stage, through the Carnival Carnival season,” she said.

The National Lotteries Control Board is the title sponsor for the 2017 CSM

This year the festival took place yesterday and today on Alberto Street in Woodbrook.

Phillipa Doyle, aka Iretiola Olaosebikan, one of the organisers of the festival and wife of Orisagbemi, explained that the festival was one way to pay homage to the Yoruba deity Obatala.

Some of the stories about Obalata said he was responsible for the creation of humans, that he sparks creativity in humans, is about high ethical and moral values, and favourite colour is white.

She told Sunday Newsday her husband was initiated as a divine messenger in Ileife, Nigeria in 1994.

There, he received the mandate to hold the festival in the Western Hemisphere to which he began celebrating it in Trinidad and Tobago at the same time the festival is celebrated in Nigeria.

Olaosebikan stated that the message of Obatala was about being creative, peaceful, finding harmony, a more positive approach to life, and not being distracted by material things or other things that could take away from being your best self.

This year’s festival included a service and procession at Ita Oosa, 51 Alberto Street, Woodbrook yesterday, as well as a craft market and family day at Siegert Square, inclusive of a bouncy castle, drummers, a farmers market, various jewellery and fashion displays.

“Every year we try to incorporate different things.

One year we had a women’s day focussing on women’s health.

We would also like to start a library with books you may not find in the library — more ethnic in nature — and a work/study centre that would be open to children where they can get homework assistance,” said Olaosebikan.

In addition, three to five young persons were usually presented with a $1,000 donation to assist with their secondary schooling.

This year, the recipients include three young women from the Carib community this year, and two from the Orisha community.

The imam who heads the Enterprise Mosque in the troubled Enterprise community was remanded in custody on Friday for tracing following his appearance before Magistrate Margaret Alert in the Chaguanas Magistrate’s Court. Lynch was jointly charged with Andy Doolamsingh, 25, a security guard of Charlieville for possession of a 9 mm pistol and ten rounds of 9 mm ammunition.

Both men were arrested on Tuesday after police officers stopped and searched the vehicle in which they were seated and discovered the loaded pistol.

Both men were represented in court by attorney Shiva Boodoo.

In July 2015, one of Lynch’s son Akmal, 22, a security guard was shot and killed while on duty at a construction site in Chaguanas.

Another son Aquiy, 27, who was also on duty was seriously wounded in the attack.

And last year May, Ryan “Daewoo” Hercules, 39, who provided personal protection for Lynch, and also protected the Enterprise Mosque, was shot and killed at Crown Trace, Enterprise.

Hercules had only moved into the area three months to work as security for Lynch when he met his death.

Lynch has been an advocate for peace in the warring Enterprise community.

Residents say the fire-bombing was part of the ongoing turf war in the area.

Marissa Tobas told reporters she was on her way to a christening when she got a call that her home was on fire.

When she returned home she saw her mother trying to flee the burning structure.

Tobas said her mother sustained first degree burns on her back, fingers and feet and was taken to the Port-of- Spain General Hospital for treatment.

“I am thanking God to move out of here because I have been begging HDC for a home for the longest while to get out of this. In here not nice. When you coming in the night, it’s like a scary movie,” she said.

Tobas said the war has been on going for four years.

“I believe this war ‘aint done, this war now start. I not in the war. I does barely speak to people. Good morning, good evening and good bye because I don’t want them to say I siding with the wrong clip.

“My children don’t even want to come up here,” she said.

Police are continuing their investigations.

“There is need for change.

There is need for policies to deal with day to day office matters,” he told Sunday Newsday.

Arrindell, who has served on the Keith Diaz-led executive for the past two years, claimed there was no set policy within the organisation to address expenditure.

“When is it okay for the president to say, go ahead with this or that in terms of spending money and when it is not okay.

Is it over the $5,000 line, over the $1,000 line, when would we need to get board consent.

There is nothing to show that,” he claimed, adding that there also nothing in place to scrutinise the award of contracts.

Speaking in the midst of the raging stand-off between Pan Trinbago and the newly-formed United Players Movement, led by All Stars pannist Dane Gulston, Arrindell stressed the leadership of Pan Trinbago must step down if the organisation were to progress.

“At this point in time, given all I have been seeing in the newspapers, the Government has lost confidence in the present executive and then the membership is also asking everyone to step down. So, I think the honourable thing to do is for everyone to step down and allow the organisation to breathe,” he said.

“I think that people staying there is just stifling the organisation and we would not be able to go anywhere because we need assistance from the government.

“And if we not getting the Government to negotiate with the executive, it not making any sense being there. Give somebody else a chance to try and unite everybody and have a united front.” A meeting has since been organised by Pan Trinbago for Tuesday at City Hall, Port-of- Spain, to discuss plans for Panorama 2017. A report is also expected to be delivered to its membership at the meeting.

Saying he did not want to speak too much about Pan Trinbago’s internal workings, Arrindell claimed that “a lot of things have been going on behind the scenes.” However, he blamed disrespect on the part of the executive for his decision to abruptly sever ties with the organisation.

Arrindell told Sunday Newsday, he had attended a meeting of the disgruntled pan men at All Stars panyard early last week to discuss the non-payment of monies owed to players among other issues.

Arrindell said he lent solidarity to the group and encouraged other executive members to follow suit “because we need to be empathetic.” He claimed Diaz subsequently took issue with his decision to lend an ear to the Gulston-led group of players and exhibited a hostile manner to him.

Diaz, he claimed, also stopped answering his cellphone calls and left him out of an executive meeting at the organisation’s headquarters.

“I have been getting reports from people that the president no longer wants to have anything to do with me,” Arrindell claimed.

Arrindell said he could not tolerate that level of disrespect and felt he needed to resign.

He said the players needed to be paid for their services.

“But part of the problem is that the pan man has no voice, no union and there appears to be a line between the executive and membership,” said Arrindell.

Gulston, meanwhile, reiterated his call for the executive to go. He said a fresh election should be called within the next three months.

Pan Trinbago executives serve a period of three years. The last election was held in October 2015. (See page 17)

“He is doing good,” the source told Sunday Newsday.

He said Diaz’s surgery was successful so much so that he was now being allowed to accept visits from family members.

“Before, he could not see any visitors,” the source said, adding that he could not provide further details.

The Pan Trinbago head is currently receiving treatment at the St Clair Medical Centre, Port-of-Spain.

Diaz underwent an angioplasty procedure at a medical facility after suffering a heart attack on Thursday. He reportedly experienced the heart attack during a meeting with officials of the National Carnival Commission.

Diaz’s bout with illness came amidst mounting calls for his removal as Pan Trinbago president after allegations of corruption were levelled recently against him and members of the executive in relation to the non-payment of monies owed to players for Panorama competitions in 2016.

A meeting to address these concerns has been planned for Tuesday at City Hall, P

The tomb, comprising immaculately white tiles and an ornate railing, was unveiled during a simple private ceremony in the Surrey Village cemetery to commemorate the first anniversary of Samaroo’s death, his wife Balmatie told Sunday Newsday.

“The corporation always said they wanted to do it and they felt that it was appropriate to unveil it on the anniversary of his death,” she said.

Samaroo, 65, lost an almost decade long battle with Alzheimer’s Disease at his home in Mausica, D’Abadie, on January 7, 2016.

The prolific pan arranger, long hailed as a musical icon, had led the east Port-of- Spain band, BP Renegades, to nine National Panorama titles and was bestowed with the Humming Bird Medal of Merit (Silver) in 1987 as well as the Chaconia Medal (Silver) in 1995 and an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies in 2003 for his contribution to culture and the steelband movement .

Samaroo was also associated with Arima Angel Harps, Deltones and Sangre Grande Cordettes .

Balmatie said she felt some apprehension ahead of the unveiling.

“I was feeling worse than I did at his funeral but now I am a little better,” she said.

Balmatie said before the event, members of Samaroo’s family, including his four children, participated in a quiet, religious service at his home.

Samaroo’s son, Amrit, has followed in his father’s footsteps as the arranger for champion band Super Novas.

Balmatie described her late husband was a “nice and loving” person.

“The truest happiness was his music and passion for the steel pan. With much move, he created music that will live on in our hearts,” she said.

He died on Thursday last at the age of 99.

Williams started his teaching career at the Tunapuna Anglican Primary School after graduating from the Teachers’ Training College in 1937. A few years later he was appointed assistant manager at the Tacarigua Orphanage.

After that he took up appointments as headmaster of Morvant, Toco, Eccles Village, and Williamsville Anglican schools.

He was later appointed warden at the Mausica Teachers’ College. In 2012, Williams was awarded the Public Service Medal of Merit (Gold) for outstanding and meritorious service.

Relatives told Sunday Newsday yesterday that funeral arrangements were still being finalised.

The movies influenced changes in dress, a new language, different to the more widespread Bhojpuri that East Indians in Trinidad spoke, and provided a repertoire of new music for East Indian musicians and singers in Trinidad.

For generations of Indians in the Caribbean diaspora, the Hindi film has been a significant source of models pertaining to ideas of Indianness, values, family relationships, notions of Indian masculinity and femininity, and class. Those who have been around long enough may have memories of descriptions like ‘The boy dark like dem Madras people’ or ‘Fair like Bombay Indian’, ideas that were already around but, which were compounded by images of actors and actresses who were of light complexion and fit the ideal of ‘white’ as beautiful. The films essentially established a connection to India, that assisted in expanding and re-shaping an Indian cultural consciousness in Trinidad. In small pockets of Trinidad, there are, up to today, communities which still cling to the idea of India through old Hindi film songs which are regularly aired on East Indian radio stations, the Indian movie, as we popularly call it, cable television and the Internet.

Although there were patriotic movies and those based on stories of Hindu divinities, it is with laughter that many of us speak about the typical Bollywood formula of girl meets boy. ‘Everybody runs around a tree and sings songs’ is a common perception of the Indian movie.

Whether action (most films have the fist-fight at least) like Dhoom or dramas like Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, there is more often than not, romance involved. And music.

One is brought to Hindi films, first through the musical trailers. The storyline seems almost secondary.

But, in between this set formula, there are a few films that add a new dimension to the generally accepted narratives.

There have been few plots in Bollywood cinema that have provided fresh takes on Indian culture and society in modern times. Many alternative stories have come from producers/directors outside India.

Among them Deepa Mehta’s Fire and Water come to mind. Within Indian however, Anurag Kashyap’s films have pushed boundaries.

Among them, That Girl in Yellow Boots (available on youtube) and more recently Gangs of Wasseypur, stand out as alternatives to the usual Bollywood narrative. And now there’s Dangal. Aamir Khan as producer, shines once again with his off-the-beaten-track film that can still be categorized as good family entertainment. (See Khan’s Lagaan and Taare Zameen Par).

Dangal, now showing in cinemas in Trinidad, is a biopic of the Phogat sisters, female wrestlers whose father defied the usual take on Indian womanhood to train his daughters as world class wrestlers.

Geeta Phogat eventually won India’s first ever gold medal for wrestling at the Commonwealth Games, New Delhi in 2010. Her younger sister Babita followed in 2014.

In light of Trinidad’s 2016 child marriage debate, Dangal feels relevant, addressing the very current issue of possibilities, other than marriage and motherhood, available to women. In a scene where the girls attend a friend’s engagement, they are seen complaining about their father’s lack of sympathy and his fierce discipline, wishing such a father on no one. The voice of their friend silences them.

‘At least your father thinks about you. At least he is giving you an opportunity to be something other than a wife. In a world where a girl is simply a burden, where she is trained for household chores and then by age fourteen, she is married off to someone she hasn’t even seen, you have an opportunity to be something other than that. At least you are not invisible to him.’ Set in Haryana where the options for women are limited and where, there is reportedly a high incidence of female infanticide, Mahavir Singh Phogat defied the traditions of his village. He pushes his daughters into a male world where they endure the biases against women, particularly in a sport dominated by men. Yet, they emerge triumphant.

And if film is any inspiration, then Dangal provides an alternative view on Indian womanhood.

In a year that marks the centenary anniversary of the end of indentureship in Trinidad, Dangal seems a fitting film to represent a modern era of change in Indian consciousness. In a diasporic community such as ours, where there are still deep-seated ideals pertaining to Indianness and Indian womanhood, such films provide much-needed inspiration. Made in India, the nation where many Indians in Trinidad have looked to for direction, such films serve as a sanction of sorts, saying to women and men alike, that, non-traditional pursuits and behaviours are ‘perfectly acceptable’.

E d i t o r ’ s Note: Sharda Patasar goes on vacation from today.

The phrase I coin, d?j? view, refers to the phenomenon of looking ahead at a disaster with which we are vaguely familiar, and plunging headlong into the maelstrom “irregardless (sic)”.

Truly we have no memory in this land. What we choose to remember are petty spites are trivia. We retain nothing in our memories to guide us, or to build upon. The miscellaneous minor stepping stones left by the British—Victorian laws and regulations, nonsensical Colonial textbooks to cement into our memories the rituals of Cutteridge, the atrocities (described as heroics) of British generals and admirals, and the names of trees and flowers important to us. Trees like oak and elm and beech and birch and flowers like rose and petunia and marigold. But you know what? At least we learned something, however alien to our lives, but something about our socalled Mother Country. I am not sure what our children are learning today, but I suspect that we still tend to use “outside” references and examples to teach our young. And while I would never suggest that we become isolationist and only learn about what we have, grow, build and write, I would like to know that we genuinely teach and learn about whom we are, and why we do what we do (or what our ancestors did).

An example of what I am trying to say lies in a “book list” given to me around the turn of the millennium by the principal of the newly-built Beetham Primary School. I was working with the local contractor who built the school, and upon completion we asked the incoming principal if we could provide a gift to the school at the handover ceremony. They asked for books for the new library. We requested a list of the books they would like.

The list contained all of Enid Blyton, and other books, all written in England, all illustrated with little blonde, blue-eyed children having English adventures and playing English games and eating English fruit and muffins. There was not a single local author or story in the list. You see we had long been indoctrinated against learning about our own Folk Tales and local characters and adventures.

We carry a kind of shame against developing our own stories and legends, and remain embedded in what we were taught by Queen Victoria and Colonel Cutteridge.

I heard on radio once, many years ago, our Merle Hodge speaking about how colonial children’s literature affected her. She said she did not want to play barefooted, so always wore her Bata buckled sandals.

Her dolls were blonde, blueeyed white babies. I wonder now, did she play “Mummy”, or did she play “Nanny” with her dolls? We need a truthful, even if painful history of our “Discovery”, Conquest, Slavery and Indentureship.

While confessing that I am not familiar with what the current history texts cover or how it is covered, I recall that the European plunderers were depicted as heroes and “civilizers” of these islands and the whole New World, blessing and beheading the indigenous and the imported slave populations. “How the West Was Won” (a movie title I borrow here) is a story which needs to be re-told, truthfully, painfully maybe, but necessary as the foundation for the civilizations imported into the New World. The crimes committed by Europeans against native peoples and imported slaves and indentured workers must be redefined as atrocities and not portrayed as heroism.

We need to become honest with ourselves throughout our society.

I consider Trinidad and Tobago the most backward of the Caribbean Islands I have visited in terms of building our foundations for the future. Maybe it was our oil wealth which set us as the ne’erdo- well wastrel of all the islands? That plus the charming veneer of being more multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious than our neighbours? This wastrel element prevents us from being serious and building upon the tremendous, and still acknowledged, potential of talent and goodwill that we share.

Those in power, white and nonwhite, will tell us how “dangerous” it would be to share the truth about the conquest of these islands, the almost 400 years of slavery, indentureship, prejudice and injustice.

Dangerous for whom? Do we pretend that the children of the massacred, enslaved and indentured are not aware of these atrocities? We are currently on the brink of our destruction, and we are afraid to face the issues which, if healed, can rebuild a better society for all of us.