An­dre Bap­tise

Two of Trinidad and To­ba­go's top rat­ed singers and dancers thrilled the Guade­lou­pean peo­ple in Basse Terre re­cent­ly with a scin­til­lat­ing per­for­mance.Serv­ing up hot chut­ney mu­sic and dance were Ricky Khan­doo from the band Beena Sangeet and for­mer Mas­tana win­ner Vishal Pooran.Much to the de­light of the Guade­loupe au­di­ence the duo had the crowd call­ing for more. The oc­ca­sion was the 64th an­niver­sary of the In­de­pen­dence of In­dia, where the de­scen­dants of the im­mi­grants cel­e­brat­ed with a con­cert fea­tur­ing these T&T acts.Host­ed by GO­PIO Guade­loupe, the per­form­ers in­clud­ed mu­si­cian Shi­va Chaitoo who cre­at­ed a stir when he played Bol­ly­wood love songs on the vi­o­lin and vo­cal­ist Girlie Sa­hadeo who added a sen­ti­men­tal touch to the pro­gram­ming when she did Aye Mere Va­ton Ko Lo­go.These per­form­ers were sup­port­ed by youth­ful singer Ak­shaye Khan­doo, mu­si­cian Kendel Jag­ger­nauth and dancers Aman­da Lutch­man, Dhristie Jankie, Sinead Bhag­wan­deen and Vare­sha Ram­nath.

Pres­i­dent of GO­PIO Guade­loupe, Michel Narayansam­my, said de­spite the heavy rain­fall, the peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gin were ea­ger to cel­e­brate this oc­ca­sion as their link to the moth­er­land of In­dia. He went on to pose two im­por­tant ques­tions to the au­di­ence which were-How the PIO of Guade­loupe are go­ing to par­tic­i­pate in the dy­nam­ics of de­vel­op­ment in their coun­tries of ori­gin in In­dia? and How PIO and the Guade­loupe In­di­ans are able to ben­e­fit from the emer­gence of this new eco­nom­ic po­ten­cy that is in­di­go?An­swer­ing his own ques­tions, Narayansam­my said: "In Guade­loupe, firms be­long­ing to peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gin (PIO) are those who have the know-hows and can am­pli­fy the de­vel­op­ment process of in­di­go, of meme (idea, be­hav­iour, style, or us­age that spreads from per­son to per­son with­in a cul­ture).We can give our youths the op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tend big uni­ver­si­ties in In­dia."He added that the main aim of GO­PIO was to de­vel­op In­di­an cul­ture in that coun­try. The GO­PIO team of 60 peo­ple is plan­ning to vis­it T&T in 2012 and meet with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as well as Trade Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz and oth­er dig­ni­taries in the hope of fos­ter­ing clos­er ties with the two coun­tries.The group is now plan­ning its Di­vali pro­gramme for Oc­to­ber and al­so its vis­it to In­dia in 2012.