Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

A Chut­ney artiste has come un­der heavy fire for des­e­crat­ing the grounds of a world-fa­mous Hin­du tem­ple in Cara­pichaima by film­ing a mu­sic video for his 2017 Chut­ney song on the com­pound with­out per­mis­sion.&nb­sp;

Rick Ja­cob (Rick J's) 2017 Chut­ney So­ca song&nb­sp;'Roll Yuh Hips' was rel­a­tive­ly un­known un­til so­cial me­dia users be­gan shar­ing the mu­sic video which showed the artiste danc­ing and singing in front of the&nb­sp;Sri Dat­ta­treya Yo­ga Cen­tre's Ashram in Cara­pichaima.&nb­sp;

The ashram's 85ft Hanu­man Mur­ti was wide­ly show­cased in the video and Ja­cob was seen kneel­ing be­fore the prayer al­tars in some parts of the video. The stat­ue, con­se­crat­ed in 2003, is the tallest in the West­ern hemi­sphere and sec­ond tallest in the world ac­cord­ing to Des­ti­na­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go's web­site.&nb­sp;

How­ev­er, with the lyrics invit­ing women to roll their hips, Hin­dus and non-Hin­dus alike were up in arms, ac­cus­ing Ja­cob of dis­re­spect­ing the tem­ple and the re­li­gion.&nb­sp;

In re­tal­i­a­tion on his Face­book page ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, Ja­cob's post­ed, "If ur a hin­du and u hv a jande in yuh yard dont hold no par­tites in alyuh yard dont play no alk­i­line next to alyuh jande be­cause thats a dis­re­spect yuh feel meh af­ter all my hard work this is how my in­di­an ppl re­pay me by burn­ing my name to the ground but i com­ing for all of alyuh wait i have alot to say al­so."

A short while lat­er he post­ed, "I&nb­sp;want alyuh ad­dess me on the streets when alyuh see me come and ask meh why i do the video dey and i go tell alyuh since alyuh dho be­lieve we get per­mis­sion."

How­ev­er, in a press re­lease yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the Yo­ga Cen­tre,&nb­sp;Ramesh Per­sad-Ma­haraj, said Ja­cob's nev­er got per­mis­sion to use the com­pound.&nb­sp;

"The pub­lic is here­by in­formed that the video by Rick J who pos­es as a chut­ney singer was done on the sa­cred grounds of our Ashram with­out our knowl­edge. Ap­par­ent­ly, he chose a day and time when the Tem­ple was closed and no­body was around to pre­vent him from do­ing his mis­chief," Per­sad-Ma­haraj said."

"The video is a vi­o­la­tion of the sanc­ti­ty Hin­dus have for their deities and places of wor­ship. It is dis­grace­ful and an in­sult to all Hin­dus and per­sons who re­spect places of wor­ship."

He called on Ja­cob to re­move the video and apol­o­gise to the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty, adding, "I would like to men­tion that it is a crim­i­nal of­fense for any per­son to be­have in­de­cent­ly in any place of di­vine wor­ship at any time. I there­fore re­quest him to act prompt­ly to avoid em­bar­rass­ment and le­gal costs."

The T&T Guardian tried con­tact­ing Ja­cob via so­cial me­dia but he did not re­spond to ques­tions.&nb­sp;

Checks for the video on Youtube re­vealed it's con­tent had been blocked and it was list­ed as pri­vate.&nb­sp;