Kevon Felmine

Sore losers. That was the re­sponse of Ains­ley Matthews, leader of the Owen C Hinds Foun­da­tion, to the planned boy­cott of Car­ni­val by band lead­ers over the pro­posed changes to the stag­ing of fi­nals of the Na­tion­al Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion.

The south­ern mas­man, who is con­tin­u­ing the lega­cy of Hinds, the for­mer chair­man of the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion (NC­BA), was ex­treme­ly crit­i­cal of those op­posed to the changes laid out by the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC), un­der the new lead­er­ship of Al­li­son De­mas in col­lab­o­ra­tion with present NC­BA head David Lopez.

The dis­sent­ing group has pro­posed the Wednes­day be­fore Car­ni­val, in­stead of Fan­tas­tic Fri­day, which they say will not draw spec­ta­tors who will in­stead grav­i­tate to the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed, an­nu­al In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tion. The mas­quer­aders have al­so called for an in­crease in prize mon­ey, prop­er fa­cil­i­ties, plan­ning and pro­duc­tion and the pro­vi­sion of time­ly re­sults af­ter the com­pe­ti­tion.

In an in­ter­view from the Rush­worth Street, San Fer­nan­do mas camp, Matthews said: "The peo­ple who mak­ing all the noise are sore losers."

He said who wants to boy­cott could do so, but promised he will be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the show come hell or high wa­ter. If the more pop­u­lar bands pull out of the com­pe­ti­tion, he ra­tio­nalised, it would on­ly pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for oth­ers to shine. "All of south and most of T&T will be there," he said, ex­plain­ing that the King and Queens and the So­ca Monarch com­pe­ti­tions at­tract dif­fer­ent crowds.

"Their be­hav­iour is tan­ta­mount to child­ish­ness. In any case, who said they will make it to the fi­nals? Even if there is a boy­cott, it will give oth­ers in­cen­tive and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show their class and what they can do." The 18-time cham­pi­ons and de­fend­ing San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Band of the Year, Ivan Kalicha­ran Mas Band con­curred with the views ex­pressed by Matthews.

The Kalicha­ran mas camp will be en­ter­ing two queens and one king from their 2013 pre­sen­ta­tion Rise of the Olympians. "We have no plans to boy­cott the kings com­pe­ti­tion," said An­drew Kalicha­ran, the leg­endary mas man's son said yes­ter­day. He agreed that the au­di­ence for the So­ca Monarch will be dif­fer­ent to the Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion.

"So­ca Monarch and the Kings and Queens com­pe­ti­tion have two dif­fer­ent crowds so So­ca Monarch will not ham­per any­thing," he said. Kalicha­ran said a win on the Fri­day night, in­stead of the tra­di­tion­al Sun­day night at the Di­manche Gras show, will give the King and Queen a longer reign over the Mer­ry Monarch.

"If I am king or queen and you win on a Fri­day night, you be­gin your reign in the thick of the ac­tion, from Fan­tas­tic Fri­day straight in­to Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day," Kalicha­ran said. But not all mas men in South were as en­thu­si­as­tic as Kalicha­ran or Matthews. Renowned In­di­an Mas pro­duc­er Li­onel Jages­sar of Li­onel Jages­sar and As­so­ciates said he was in favour of boy­cotting the show.

Jages­sar, who has pro­duced na­tion­al and re­gion­al kings and queens in the past, said the changes by the NC­BA were not right. "We have to sup­port the boy­cott be­cause we don't be­live what they do­ing is the right thing. So many years we are do­ing it in the same man­ner, I don't see how they can en­hance it by chang­ing the dates.

"We are in the boy­cott be­cause we know it can­not be done like that," Jages­sar said. How­ev­er, he said his band will be com­pet­ing in the San Fer­nan­do Di­manche Gras Kings and Queens of Car­ni­val com­pe­ti­tion at Skin­ner Park next month.