In­nis Fran­cis

Two weeks af­ter Car­ni­val, Rasi­ka “D Rani” Din­di­al is prepar­ing to rep­re­sent the red, white and black at three ma­jor en­ter­tain­ment events abroad.

Al­though she cap­ti­vat­ed au­di­ences this sea­son with her hit chut­ney so­ca track Pong De Damadol, Din­di­al se­cured first place in the Tra­di­tion­al cat­e­go­ry and sec­ond in the Chut­ney So­ca cat­e­go­ry of the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) com­pe­ti­tion. Savi­ta Singh’s The Ring claimed the Chut­ney So­ca ti­tle, while La­dy La­va’s Cyah Pick placed third.

Din­di­al said for­eign pro­mot­ers have since ap­proached her to per­form at sev­er­al ma­jor shows in Suri­name, Toron­to, Cana­da, and Nether­lands in the com­ing months.

Known for songs such as Jing Ah Ling Ling, Bhoo­jay De Lawah and Mati­coor Night, Din­di­al has long been syn­ony­mous with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s chut­ney so­ca cul­ture. Her mu­sic of­ten tran­scends the Car­ni­val sea­son, echo­ing at house­hold cel­e­bra­tions and com­mu­ni­ty events, em­braced by au­di­ences young and old.

Mov­ing away from re­hash­ing com­pe­ti­tion night, Din­di­al said she is fo­cused on the road ahead and is look­ing for­ward to the up­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al per­for­mances.

“Ex­pe­ri­ence en­hances con­tent,” she re­flect­ed, ex­plain­ing that Pong De Damadol was in­spired by an every­day kitchen rit­u­al—the act of “pong­ing” toma­toes while cook­ing. What be­gan as a rou­tine do­mes­tic mo­ment evolved in­to a must-play par­ty an­them.

The Ca­roni-based moth­er of one said her re­cent suc­cess­es are deeply per­son­al, mark­ing her first ma­jor achieve­ments since tak­ing the step to write her own ma­te­r­i­al. She em­pha­sised that her songs do not pro­mote al­co­hol con­sump­tion, not­ing that she does not be­lieve it is nec­es­sary to cre­ate qual­i­ty mu­sic.

Din­di­al cred­its her fa­ther, Bas­deo “Lapp” Din­di­al, for her mu­si­cal in­her­i­tance. From a young age, she per­formed at wed­dings and oth­er func­tions, hon­ing the craft that would lat­er de­fine her ca­reer.

“I just sit and an idea would come to me, and I would write around that,” she said. “Pong De Damadol did well in the Tra­di­tion­al cat­e­go­ry—I came first—and sec­ond in Chut­ney So­ca. I had no idea what was go­ing to hap­pen, but I knew my per­for­mance was strong. We cre­ate songs, but we nev­er re­al­ly know how far they will reach.”

For Din­di­al, singing is a full-time pro­fes­sion, with a par­tic­u­lar de­vo­tion to tra­di­tion­al chut­ney ac­com­pa­nied by the dho­lak and har­mo­ni­um.

She al­so of­fered ad­vice to emerg­ing artistes, en­cour­ag­ing them to en­ter com­pe­ti­tions as a path­way to build­ing a house­hold name. At the same time, she urged them to un­der­stand their val­ue as cre­atives.

“I don’t think I need al­co­hol in my song for it to be good. That is not my thing. I think peo­ple need to be more cre­ative in their writ­ing and pro­duce bet­ter com­po­si­tions,” she said.