Pan­di­ta In­drani Ram­per­sad

There is a pos­si­ble need for a Save the Chut­ney se­ries, par­al­lel to the Save the Ca­lyp­so se­ries, said Prof Ken Ram­c­hand, af­ter lis­ten­ing to the lec­ture/demon­stra­tion on Chut­ney Mak­ing Mas de­liv­ered by Sat­nar­ine Balka­rans­ingh last month, at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port-of-Spain. Balka­rans­ingh, a PhD stu­dent in Cul­tur­al Stud­ies at Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), looked at the evo­lu­tion of chut­ney and its "cur­rent man­i­fes­ta­tion in the car­ni­val cul­ture."

Ram­c­hand is the As­so­ciate Provost of the Acad­e­my of Arts, Let­ters, Cul­ture and Pub­lic Af­fairs, UTT, where he ini­ti­at­ed the Save the Ca­lyp­so se­ries of lec­tures, de­signed to analyse and doc­u­ment. Speak­ing to an over­flow­ing au­di­ence, Balka­ran­sigh showed how chut­ney to­day re­mains the same, on­ly repack­aged and with poor lyrics. He said that chut­ney was prop­a­gat­ed by the sub­caste of doms and dom­nis in the In­di­an caste sys­tem, and that one of his dance demon­stra­tors, Sagar Sookraj, claims dom an­ces­try.

Balka­rans­ingh de­scribed the dif­fer­ent kinds of mu­sic brought by the In­di­ans as: lul­la­by (so­har); work songs (pisouney); rit­u­al songs (matikor and lawa); fes­tive (phag­wa, chau­tal, ulara, kabit); ex­tem­pore (bi­ra­ha); so­cial com­men­tary and lo­cal In­di­an clas­si­cal mu­sic. His demon­stra­tors showed how the rhythm of much of this mu­sic re­sem­bles what is known as chut­ney to­day. They al­so showed how the melody of this year's na­tion­al chut­ney cham­pi­on re­sem­bled that of an old­er film tune.

Balka­rans­ingh then ques­tioned the role of Cott in tak­ing roy­al­ties for chut­ney songs and whether they repa­tri­at­ed any roy­al­ties to artistes whose songs/ melodies have been pla­gia­rised. The dance steps as­so­ci­at­ed with chut­ney to­day im­i­tate the dom­i­nant Car­ni­val and Afro-Trinida­di­an steps, said Balka­rans­ingh, call­ing on In­di­ans to learn some of their ba­sic tra­di­tion­al folk steps.

Touch­ing on the con­tro­ver­sy that sur­rounds to­day's chut­ney, Balka­rans­ingh not­ed that chut­ney has come out from be­hind the metaphor­i­cal pur­dah (veil) that sep­a­rat­ed men from women. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, chut­ney mu­sic and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing dance took place in women's space, eg the fes­tive oc­ca­sions be­fore mar­riage. Balka­rans­ingh ex­plained that the dance move­ments were sex­u­al­ly ex­plic­it and while it was an oc­ca­sion for fun and free­dom, it was al­so a so­cial­is­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for younger women. His demon­stra­tor, Resh­ma Sood­een, went on to ex­pert­ly demon­strate some 15 types of "wine" found in chut­ney to­day.

Many said she looked very grace­ful and this was en­hanced by her loose In­di­an wear. Some said that these same dances would not look the same if she had worn more tight-fit­ting cloth­ing. In the words of Prof Ram­c­hand, her "mod­esty and el­e­gance brought a dig­ni­fied sug­ges­tive­ness to the wine."

The 15 win­ing forms iden­ti­fied were: Jook-waist, Hip Fling, Dol­lar wine, Bend down and Wine, Walk and Wine, Jump and Wine, Wine on a Man, Nan­ny Wine, Wine on a Bum­sy, Knee Wine, Bi­cy­cle Wine, High Thigh Wine, Wave­like/Rip­ple Wine and Push Back and Wine, or Push your Bumper.