Pe­ter Ray Blood

Most of you will not be­lieve this but I have served as a Phag­wa judge on more than one oc­ca­sion, as well as at­tend­ed many a pichakaa­ree con­test, thanks to my friend Ravi Ji. So, I know a great deal about Maakhan Chor and Ran­ga Barase com­pe­ti­tions.

My favourite is the Maakhan Chor in which ten-mem­ber teams are re­quired to form a hu­man pyra­mid to get a pen­nant sus­pend­ed many feet over­head in the quick­est time. Ba­chon ka Khel (chil­dren's games) is al­so great fun with sev­er­al chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ing in whole­some fun, in­clud­ing the sa­da and con­dense milk eat­ing com­pe­ti­tion.

It is why I am so ex­cit­ed to at­tend this week­end's 24th an­nu­al Kendra Phag­wa Fes­ti­val to­mor­row and Sun­day. Ho­likaa Fri­day is sched­uled for to­day at 6.45 pm, and Pichakaa­ree Sun­day takes place on Sun­day, from 2 pm. Both events will be held at the Kendra Grounds, lo­cat­ed at Gil­ba Trace, Raghu­nanan Road Ex­ten­sion (off South­ern Main Road), En­ter­prise.

The Ho­li­ka Da­han ef­fi­gy will al­so be burnt tonight. Ho­li­ka Da­han (Ka­mudu pyre) is cel­e­brat­ed by burn­ing Ho­li­ka, the dev­il. For many tra­di­tions in Hin­duism, Holi cel­e­brates the death of Ho­li­ka in or­der to save Prahlad, and thus Holi gets its name.

Phag­wa is a spring fes­ti­val al­so known as "the fes­ti­val of colours" or "the fes­ti­val of love." It is an an­cient Hin­du re­li­gious fes­ti­val which has be­come pop­u­lar with non-Hin­dus na­tion­wide. Par­tic­i­pants douse them­selves with abeer (coloured wa­ter) dur­ing cel­e­bra­tions.

Twelve fi­nal­ists will vie for the Kendra Phag­wa Fes­ti­val's Pichakaa­ree Cham­pi­onship. The 24th edi­tion of the an­nu­al fes­ti­val was launched on the oc­ca­sion of Vas­ant Pan­cha­mi on Jan­u­ary 25, with the tra­di­tion­al "chul­ha boil­ing" of the first abeer and the vi­brant sounds of chow­taal by the Su­ma­tee Dab­ha Ra­mayan and Chow­taal Group. Or­gan­is­ers and con­tes­tants have since been busy with prepa­ra­tion for this week­end's two grand events.

The qual­i­fy­ing round of the pichakaa­ree com­pe­ti­tion was held last Sat­ur­day and a dozen fi­nal­ists were cho­sen by the pan­el of judges. Sev­er­al first-timers and pichakaa­ree vet­er­ans will at­tempt to de­throne the reign­ing cham­pi­on Mo­hip Poon­wassie.

The fi­nal­ists are Mukesh Ba­booram, Christo­pher Joseph, Ricky Khan­doo, Jagdeo Pha­goo, Toolsie Ram­dass Singh, Nir­mal Ram­dass Singh, Nir­mala Ram­dass Singh, Kamal­dai Ramkissoon, Giselle Ra­moutar, Genevieve Ram­ta­hal, Reena Teelucks­ingh and Poon­wassie.

One of the things to im­press me about the pichakaa­ree com­pe­ti­tion is the so­cial and po­lit­i­cal com­men­taries sung by some of the fi­nal­ists. Al­so im­pres­sive are some of the props and cos­tumes used by con­tes­tants.

Gee­ta Ram­s­ingh (Vahi­ni), pres­i­dent of the Kendra, in­di­cat­ed that the 2015 theme, En­light­ened Cit­i­zen­ship, was cho­sen in re­sponse to the many trou­ble­some is­sues af­fect­ing our na­tion. Pichakaa­ree, she said, is a con­scious, in­tel­li­gent voice and the stan­dard of pichakaa­rees this year is very high. It was very re­as­sur­ing to see sev­er­al first-timers and teenagers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the qual­i­fy­ing round, en­sur­ing longevi­ty for the art form.

By the way, I have al­so been a judge at the in­au­gur­al Saaj Sam­me­lan com­pe­ti­tion on more than one oc­ca­sion.

Don't stop the par­ty

Con­trary to this year's pop­u­lar so­ca item Par­ty Done by Machel Mon­tano and An­gela Hunte, there will be no stop­ping the par­ty for the short Car­ni­val 2016 sea­son.

With next year's Car­ni­val sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 8 to 9, it is very like­ly that the first fete of the sea­son will be held be­fore Christ­mas. As ex­pect­ed, the jostling has start­ed among fete pro­mot­ers to find the best date for their events. A lot of clash­ing is ex­pect­ed.

The ear­li­est news reach­ing Pulse shows that as soon as the new year opens, with Tribe Ice and Trin­i­ty Col­lege's So­ka in Mo­ka ex­pect­ed to be held on Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 2. Oth­er ten­ta­tive dates in­clude QRC Fete Roy­al (Jan­u­ary 9); Stumped!!! (Jan­u­ary 9); Old Hi­lar­i­ans (Jan­u­ary 16); Blue Flame (Jan­u­ary 23); St Mary's Fete with the Saints (Jan­u­ary 23); Yorke Mas­quer­ade (Jan­u­ary 24); Tribe Ig­nite (Feb­ru­ary 4).

Dates of which one can be cer­tain are Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so semi­fi­nal (Jan­u­ary 23); Na­tion­al Panora­ma se­mi-fi­nal (Jan­u­ary 24); Machel Mon­tano (Jan­u­ary 25); Tu­co Kaiso­ra­ma (Feb­ru­ary 4); Na­tion­al Kings & Queens Fi­nals (Feb­ru­ary 5); In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch Fi­nals (Feb­ru­ary 5); Na­tion­al Panora­ma fi­nal (Feb­ru­ary 6); Di­manche Gras (Feb­ru­ary 7).

Spar­row hails All Stars

"All Stars for­ev­er!" said Mighty Spar­row on Mon­day, hours be­fore de­part­ing for New York for a rou­tine med­ical check-up. The Ca­lyp­so King of the World con­tin­ued, "You should hear me brag­ging 'we win, we win' when we won Panora­ma.

Then there was more brag­ging af­ter Car­ni­val when we won the Band of the Year."

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Massy Trinidad All Stars and Spar­row have had a close affin­i­ty for decades, the band hav­ing won much ac­claim in 1984 for its ren­di­tion of Spar­row's Road March Doh Back Back. Said Spar­row: "Con­grat­u­late Berry (man­ag­er Beres­ford Hunte) and Smooth (arranger Leon Ed­wards) on their achieve­ments and mak­ing me a hap­py man this Car­ni­val. When I saw the band on Car­ni­val day I said 'now that is mas',"

Spar­row said he will be in and out of the coun­try reg­u­lar­ly this year as he is booked for sev­er­al en­gage­ments. Up to last Sun­day he per­formed at Iere The­atre Pro­duc­tions and Can­boulay Pro­duc­tions' pro­duc­tion of Ten to One, at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Sapa), San Fer­nan­do.

The freak next door

Vet­er­an ac­tor Ray­mond Choo Kong is fun­ny but Car­olyn Tay­lor was down­right hi­lar­i­ous when Par­ty Done for the Freak Next Door pre­miered last week­end at Queen's Hall, St Ann's. Pro­duced by Ray­mond Choo Kong Pro­duc­tions (RCKP) and First In­stinct, the play stars Ce­cil­ia Salazar, Arnold "Pee­nie" Goind­han, Kevon Brooks, Trevor C Jug­mo­han, Choo Kong and Tay­lor.

What sur­prised me ear­ly o'clock about the play was there was ab­solute­ly no ref­er­ence to the so­ca hit Par­ty Done by Machel Mon­tano and An­gela Hunte, nor even the clos­est con­nec­tion to the bac­cha­nal is­sues of the just con­clud­ed Car­ni­val. Nonethe­less, it was well-script­ed and came across well-re­hearsed on open­ing night.

Por­tray­ing the ditzy Pauline, wife of "vil­lage ram" Ron (Goind­han), Tay­lor was giv­en some re­al­ly fun­ny lines while Choo Kong, as Bar­ry Clarke, was his nor­mal self, por­tray­ing the stereo­typ­i­cal feisty "Chi­nee man" we've seen him as be­fore. The most ex­citable char­ac­ter of the cast was Ce­cil­ia Salazar in the role of Jan­ice, wife of Bar­ry. Jug­mo­han, al­so the play's pro­duc­er, was cast­ed as Alan, a dead­pan char­ac­ter, young son of Bar­ry and Jan­ice. Brooks plays per­sis­tent po­lice of­fi­cer Cur­tis.

Par­ty Done for the Freak Next Door was reprised last night at CLR James Au­di­to­ri­um, Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege, Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, Val­sayn, and runs at this venue un­til Sun­day evening.

Dance­hall in the jazz

Things are pro­gress­ing nice­ly for this year's To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence (TJE) and two Caribbean stars have been added to the mix. Ja­maican dance­hall stars Ro­main Vir­go and Busy Sig­nal have been added to an al­ready star-stud­ded cast for the 2015 To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence.

The two will join the leg­endary David Rud­der who has al­so been added to the TJE cast along with lo­cal acts Kes the Band and this year's In­ter­na­tion­al Groovy So­ca Monarch, Olatun­ji.

They will be part of the Ex­pe­ri­ence that in­cludes mega stars Jen­nifer Hud­son, Miguel, Kool & the Gang and Jill Scott, in what promis­es to be an­oth­er huge TJE.

The Ex­pe­ri­ence, which is much more than mu­sic, takes place from April 19 to April 26 and will be­gin in Spey­side, with shows all over the is­land, cul­mi­nat­ing in a week­end of mu­sic, fun, food and dance at the pic­turesque Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park.

An­nounce­ments of ad­di­tion­al artistes will be made as the build-up to the fes­ti­val con­tin­ues.

�2 For more in­for­ma­tion, please go to www­to­bago­jazzex­pe­ri­ence.com or the Face­book page at www.face­book.com/to­bago­jazzex­pe­ri­ence.