Michelle Loubon

Sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha Sat Ma­haraj has al­ways been em­broiled in con­tro­ver­sy-whether it be de­fend­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's claims about death threats or the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School's eth­nic com­po­si­tion. He's been la­belled a "racist" and hailed for not be­ing afraid to "call a spade a spade". On the flip side, Ma­haraj gushed to jour­nal­ist Clevon Raphael: "I love black peo­ple," in a Sun­day Guardian in­ter­view on No­vem­ber 27. Two-time ca­lyp­so monarch, vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian Morel Pe­ters, fond­ly known as Lu­ta, has penned a satire, Bal­ance, which ad­dress­es Ma­haraj. The can­vas for Bal­ance is T&T-which the es­teemed New York Times news­pa­per gave an ex­tra­or­di­nary rat­ing de­clar­ing it the next "it" coun­try.

In­ter­viewed re­cent­ly, Pe­ters said: "Bal­ance is phrased on the Palance from the past two years. It re­al­ly has to do with the ridicu­lous na­ture of racism and how it could dis­tort peo­ple's per­cep­tion and re­al­i­ty. Pe­ters added: "For in­stance, if you see ten peo­ple of African de­scent gath­ered to­geth­er, that does not sig­ni­fy racism. There are no In­di­ans there. To the racist he would see seg­re­ga­tion, be­cause he would not see In­di­ans among them. That is the kind of think­ing I am ad­dress­ing in the song." Pe­ters said he was find­ing a "nice light hu­mor­ous way to make the com­ment." "I am tak­ing Sat's phi­los­o­phy and see­ing how ug­ly it looks. It is so sil­ly. I said: 'Take away Craw­ford's medal and give it to Rik­ki Jai (Chut­ney So­ca monarch) then we could ad­dress the im­bal­ance.'"

I'm not out of com­pe­ti­tion

Pe­ters said he want­ed his fans to know he had nev­er bowed out of com­pe­ti­tion. He said: "That is a mis­con­cep­tion on the part of many peo­ple. In 2006, I said I would not de­fend the ti­tle. I won with Kaiso Kaiso but that does not mean I am out of com­pe­ti­tion. From then, a num­ber of peo­ple had the per­cep­tion, I was through with com­pe­ti­tion." He said he even at­tempt­ed to ad­dress that mis­con­cep­tion with Go, Boy, Go. "I am ad­dress­ing two is­sues-putting to rest the per­cep­tion I am out of com­pe­ti­tion and mak­ing a crit­i­cal analy­sis of the se­lectees by the judges, at the ex­pense of my­self. "I am look­ing at the kinds of songs they are se­lect­ing. They are ne­glect­ing satire and go­ing for songs that are emp­ty and unimag­i­na­tive. Imag­ine I could not even make it to the se­mi-fi­nals. Does it mean I was that bad? What about those songs that are su­pe­ri­or to those that are left out in lieu of it?" He said the on­ly way he could ad­dress it was via the medi­um of kaiso "which caus­es peo­ple to think."

Tra­di­tion­al ca­lyp­so cus­to­di­an

While Pe­ters had not bowed out of com­pe­ti­tion, he had teamed up with the Min­istry of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism to present "Tra­di­tion­al Ca­lyp­so on the Move 2012." Among his com­rades-in-the-field are Mighty Com­pos­er, Trinidad Rio, Mas­ter Fun­ny and two young bud­ding ca­lyp­so­ni­ans with mu­sic by Skies and the Guys. Pe­ters said: "Our project is tak­ing the ca­lyp­so to the peo­ple... to the com­mu­ni­ties. There are lit­tle chil­dren who have nev­er seen or heard a ca­lyp­so. We are pre­serv­ing what we would re­fer to as vin­tage or tra­di­tion­al ca­lyp­so." Pa­trons are in for a treat. He added: "We per­form five, six, sev­en songs and feel sat­is­fied as op­posed to per­form­ing in the tents. Peo­ple en­joy a wider range from our reper­toire. We en­joy it much more than the ca­lyp­so tent." Pe­ters, a for­mer school teacher, said they were do­ing a "much big­ger work for kaiso."

"We are en­sur­ing the ba­ton is passed. We are hop­ing to catch the next gen­er­a­tion of peo­ple go­ing to ca­lyp­so tents." Fa­mous for Back to Ba­sics, Rio sent a mes­sage to his fans. "We have been out of the tents. We fast­ed for eight years be­fore go­ing on this project. We are work­ing out of the tents."

Ex­cerpts

Go For King

"Yuh bet­ter than the fel­la who sing

About wrap­ping fork in nap­kin

So go for king, go for king, go for king."

Bal­ance

"In­suf­fi­cient In­di­ans in the po­lice and the De­fence force

So fire half of the Africans

And re­place them with In­di­ans, of course

Then take a trip down to Ca­roni

Pick up some In­di­ans

And dress them in blue

Put all of them in the pen­i­ten­tiary

To bal­ance the im­bal­ance in prison, too."