RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Mu­sic and mas took over the streets of Point Fortin at day­break yes­ter­day as thou­sands turned out for J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions, but amid the rev­el­ry, pol­i­tics al­so found a voice—with some mas­quer­aders us­ing the mo­ment to call for long-await­ed retroac­tive pay for pub­lic ser­vants.

Be­fore dawn, bands chipped through the bor­ough in a vi­brant dis­play of colour and cre­ativ­i­ty. Coun­try Book­ie’s pre­sen­ta­tion, Rose, brought a sea of red to the streets, sym­bol­is­ing na­tion­al pride and vi­bran­cy, while Ronald Tay­lor’s Just Il­lu­sions daz­zled with Kalei­do­scope — a burst of rain­bow hues, feath­ered head­pieces and chore­o­graphed rou­tines fea­tur­ing flags, buck­ets and paint rollers.

But it was the jab jab band, dressed in black with strik­ing red boots, that de­liv­ered one of the most pow­er­ful state­ments of the morn­ing. Brand­ing them­selves “Jab Jab on a Pay Roll,” the group mixed tra­di­tion­al dev­il mas with so­cial com­men­tary, their boots pound­ing the as­phalt as they danced to so­ca tracks like Bad De­ci­sions and Fed Up of the Jhan­jat, all while call­ing at­ten­tion to the is­sue of back­pay.

Moko jumbies tow­ered above the crowd, pranc­ing grace­ful­ly, while rev­ellers be­low fanned them­selves with or­nate fans, chip­ping along streets coat­ed in mud, oil and paint. The at­mos­phere was elec­tric—a blend of old-time tra­di­tion and mod­ern spec­ta­cle.

For some, the ex­pe­ri­ence was sim­ply about en­joy­ment. Maris­sa Ed­wards, play­ing with Coun­try Book­ie’s Rose, said she had a “ter­rif­ic time,” de­scrib­ing the band as one of the biggest on the road and en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to join in the en­er­gy of the cel­e­bra­tions.

Oth­ers, like a mas­quer­ad­er iden­ti­fy­ing her­self as “Sexy V” from the Al­ley Boys, used the plat­form to make a plea. While em­brac­ing tra­di­tion­al jab jab por­tray­als, she said her pre­sen­ta­tion high­light­ed the strug­gle of pub­lic ser­vants await­ing retroac­tive pay­ments.

“We’re work­ing hard, and we just out of mon­ey… we beg­ging and ask­ing,” she said, adding that J’Ou­vert re­mained a space not on­ly for cel­e­bra­tion but ex­pres­sion.

De­spite the un­der­ly­ing mes­sages, the event re­mained large­ly in­ci­dent-free. Point Fortin May­or Clyde James praised both the turnout and the be­hav­iour of rev­ellers, not­ing the strong se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence and the smooth flow of ac­tiv­i­ties.

“I’m very pleased with what I’ve seen here this morn­ing,” he said. “We have a very en­er­getic crowd… peo­ple came out, and they are en­joy­ing them­selves. We are hav­ing a very clean and en­joy­able fes­ti­val so far.”

He al­so ex­tend­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to the wider pub­lic to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing the Bor­ough Day fes­tiv­i­ties, with more events, in­clud­ing Pan on the Move and the street pa­rade, still to come.