NEW­LY-CROWNED pichakaa­ree cham­pi­on, Mukesh Ba­booram, be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment should pump more cash in­to the com­pe­ti­tion.Ba­booram made the com­ment af­ter win­ning the Song and Com­pos­er cat­e­gories with his com­po­si­tion, Sug­ar Aloo, at the Hin­du Prachar Kendra's Phag­wa and pichakaa­ree singing com­pe­ti­tion at the Kendra's Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, head­quar­ters on Sun­day. For his ef­forts, Ba­booram col­lect­ed a first place prize of $8,000.

Ba­booram said he was elat­ed at his vic­to­ry, since he was a lover of the pichakaa­ree genre. He was crit­i­cal of chut­ney mu­sic, say­ing it was un­fair com­pe­ti­tion like the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) re­ceived mil­lions of dol­lars in sup­port from the state but was pro­duc­ing noth­ing new or up­lift­ing when it came to the de­vel­op­ment of lo­cal In­di­an cul­ture.

"How long will you sing about peo­ple's nan­ny, Cau­ra Riv­er and rum?" Ba­booram asked, adding the Pichakaa­ree com­pe­ti­tion was, mean­while, de­signed to pro­mote pos­i­tive lyrics and so­cial com­men­tary.Ba­booram said he was al­so dis­ap­point­ed that Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters was the on­ly gov­ern­ment min­is­ter present.

Pe­ters him­self lat­er knocked the lyrics pre­sent­ed in the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion and asked the or­gan­is­ers and chut­ney artistes to take a page out of the pichakaa­ree book. Pe­ters said, "I do hope what I am about to say here, that the peo­ple of the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch would not be mad with me, but as a man thin­keth so is he. But I want to say to you that the songs be­ing sung here at the pichakaa­ree are more in­tel­li­gent than the ones at the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch."

Pe­ters said the CSM ap­peal to the artistes to de­vel­op bet­ter lyrics and not just dish out songs about duck meat and lim­ing by the riv­er.

Ba­booram said Sug­ar Aloo was a so­cial com­men­tary knock­ing the UNC for al­low­ing ca­lyp­son­ian Sug­ar Aloes to sing on a UNC plat­form, not­ing Aloes has a his­to­ry of bash­ing the UNC and peo­ple of In­di­an her­itage. He said to add in­sult to in­jury, Aloes was paid a hefty sum to ap­pear on the plat­form, while oth­er artistes sup­port­ive of the UNC were blanked. The song al­so crit­i­cised the PP Gov­ern­ment's style of lead­er­ship.

Gi­ta Ram­s­ingh, head of the Kendra, said mem­bers of the Kendra go about rais­ing funds for the Kendra Phag­wa fes­ti­val by do­ing sales and col­lect­ing do­na­tions. She said the Kendra col­lect­ed $128,000 from the pub­lic and re­ceived $80,000 in sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment for the two-day event. She said of this, $91,000 was al­lo­cat­ed to prizes for 31 par­tic­i­pants.

Ram­s­ingh said the Kendra was not ask­ing for a hand­out from the state, but was in fact hop­ing the state would recog­nise and sup­port its ac­tiv­i­ties for the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion it was mak­ing.

SONG CAT­E­GO­RY

(Cham­pi­on) Mukesh Ba­booram

(So­cial Com­men­tary)

1. Mo­hip Poon­wassie,

2. Jagdeo Pha­goo

(Fes­tive)

1. Priya Poorai,

2. Christo­pher Joseph

(Theme)

1. Kamal­dai Ramkissoon, 2. Mar­va Mcken­zie

COM­POS­ER CAT­E­GO­RY

(Cham­pi­on) Mukesh Ba­booram

(So­cial Com­men­tary)

1. Mo­hip Poon­wassie,

2. Jagdeo Pha­goo

(Fes­tive)

1. Ram­saran Poorai,

2. Nee­tu Ram­per­sad

THEME CAT­E­GO­RY

1. Jagdeo Pha­goo, 2. Daykaliya Ram­nanan