Aba A. Luke

Sangeet 106.1FM is com­ing hot­ter than ever in 2010. The East In­di­an ra­dio sta­tion has bro­ken new ground. Apart from be­ing a pre­mier medi­um for ex­pos­ing T&T's East In­di­an cul­ture, the en­ti­ty, a di­vi­sion of the Trinidad Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, has delved in­to Car­ni­val in a big way, pre­sent­ing an eight sec­tion mas band, called Jhal­wa for C2K10. In Oc­to­ber, the band, which was de­signed and pro­duced by vet­er­an mas en­ti­ty, Harts In­ter­na­tion­al, was launched at the Zen Night Club–an oc­ca­sion marked with a su­per per­for­mance by Kar­ma fea­tur­ing Ravi and Nisha B. The pair, who will be on the road with Jhal­wa for Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, will pa­rade along­side crick­et­ing broth­ers Sher­win and Daren Gan­ga and Japan­ese so­ca sen­sa­tion, Bar­bie Japan. Ac­cord­ing to Sangeet's brand man­ag­er, Deb­o­rah Yadev, the con­cept for the band arose out of the suc­cess of a week­end ra­dio show that was fea­tured on the sta­tion.

LEFT: ?One of the eight sec­tions to take to the streets in C2K10. Pho­tos An­ge­lo Mar­celle

"Jhal­wa means fire. This is the first time that an East In­di­an ra­dio sta­tion is bring­ing out a band for Car­ni­val," said Yadev. She ex­plained that Jhal­wa tells the sto­ry of fire's meta­mor­pho­sis, from its ig­ni­tion to its state of ash, adding that the team's over­all aim was to show the ver­sa­til­i­ty of Sangeet 106.1FM. With prepa­ra­tions in full swing for their mas­quer­ad­er's to­tal sat­is­fac­tion in the all- in­clu­sive band, Yadev re­vealed that they have been re­ceiv­ing quite lot of in­ter­na­tion­al in­quiries. "A lot of peo­ple over­seas have ex­pressed their de­sire to play with us. We're en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to come in and reg­is­ter as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, though, be­cause we're ac­com­mo­dat­ing a max­i­mum of 150 per­sons per sec­tion."

With cos­tumes as low as $1,950, the sec­tions–Firestarter, Blaze, Bac­cha­nal, Bush Fire, Wild Fire, Scorcher, Show Meh Yuh Jhal­wa and Jhal­wa Fire Sailors–bring colour and el­e­ments of burn­ing ec­sta­sy to the fore. Al­ready, the team has con­cep­tu­alised a few ide­al mar­ket­ing strate­gies to en­sure that prospec­tive pa­trons get a feel for what Jhal­wa will of­fer. With two Jhal­wa–De Re­al Fire Chut­ney cruis­es planned for dates with­in the up­com­ing weeks, Yadev and her team at Sangeet are guar­an­tee­ing the to­tal pack­age, com­plete with the best drinks, the best ser­vice and the tight­est se­cu­ri­ty on the road, come car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day. Mas­quer­aders will be out­fit­ted with swag bags filled with items cour­tesy NYX Cos­met­ics, Spa Re­source, Han­key Ban­is­ter and Ocean Po­tion, just to name a few.

Be­sides its in­volve­ment in the mas­quer­ade as­pect of T&T' Car­ni­val, Sangeet which cel­e­brates its 15th an­niver­sary in 2010, will con­tin­ue with its Chut­ney Road March com­pe­ti­tion. This year, a ful­ly loaded Mit­subishi Lancer is up for grabs. Ac­cord­ing to Yadev, the com­pe­ti­tion was some­thing that Chut­ney artistes looked for­ward to, each time around. With the spec­ta­cle that is the cos­tumed road show in clear fo­cus for the Sangeet team, they're call­ing on the mass­es who sim­ply yearn for a good time, to check them out on­line at www.sangeet106.com or vis­it the Jhal­wa stu­dio mas camp at Lev­el 2, Guardian Build­ing–22-24 St. Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain. Jhal­wa guar­an­tees safe­ty, ser­vice and en­joy­ment.

?More in­fo:

?For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the band call 623-9202 ext.5999.