Trinidad breathed again yes­ter­day, show­ing the world the unique, vi­brant beau­ty of its cul­ture af­ter its ugli­est face—crime—dom­i­nat­ed the na­tion­al dis­cus­sion for so long. The spir­it of mas brought joy and a much-need­ed re­lease to thou­sands of peo­ple at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, on Car­ni­val Tues­day. While the Grand Stand was mod­er­ate­ly packed and the North Stand rel­a­tive­ly emp­ty, the stage stole the show. Mas­quer­aders danced, wined and leapt, throw­ing all their stress away. Al­most prophet­i­cal­ly, their feel­ings were per­fect­ly cap­tured by the lyrics of the sea­son’s two biggest songs, the Road March con­tenders—Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Car­ni­val Con­tract and Mi­cal Te­ja’s DNA.

Af­ter Cur­tis crossed the stage with Spir­it Mas, he took out a mark­er and signed its black sur­face. Pos­ing for pic­tures with his two friends, he did not want to for­get the mo­ment; he re­fused.

“Car­ni­val is one of the best ways to ig­nite the coun­try. I play mas every year be­cause I love the cul­ture. I love the coun­try. I love every­thing about it.

“We need more of this spir­it be­cause of the cli­mate of crim­i­nal­i­ty. We need more of this,” he said.

An­oth­er Spir­it mas­quer­ad­er, Shanelle Bar­row, around two decades younger than Cur­tis, took some time to soak in the mo­ment af­ter cross­ing the stage.

Play­ing mas for her sec­ond time, she said this year was by some dis­tance the bet­ter ex­pe­ri­ence. It came at right the just time, she said.

“One hun­dred per cent, it of­fered a re­lease from my stress­es. These two days and even the week lead­ing up to it, oh my God. The air is just mag­i­cal. You get a dif­fer­ent vibe,” Shanelle said.

As Shanelle and Cur­tis crossed with Spir­it Mas to Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Car­ni­val Con­tract, Ed­mund and his three-year-old looked on. He smiled proud­ly as his daugh­ter, in her ver­sion of a cos­tume, in­no­cent­ly mim­ic­ked the rev­el­ry.

“Car­ni­val is very, very im­por­tant. It of­fers a re­lease. Af­ter the stress­ful days of work­ing, you must come out and en­joy your­self. Take a lit­tle drink. Take a lit­tle jump up, you know. See the beau­ty of Trinidad,” he said.

Mar­tin, who did not want to give his full name, grew up in a re­li­gious house­hold, so he re­sist­ed an in­ner burn­ing de­sire to touch the road. This year, he fi­nal­ly an­swered that call, and it did not dis­ap­point, he said.

“Yeah. Yes­ter­day and to­day of­fered me a re­lease. Yes­ter­day more than to­day. Yes­ter­day I was freer. Yes­ter­day, I was feel­ing re­al­ly free. It was epic,” he said.

Up in the Grand Stand, El­lie, in her 70s, pulled out her phone to take pic­tures. Liv­ing in the Unit­ed States for decades, she was back home for the sea­son. She too did not want to for­get.

“This is we thing. Car­ni­val is colour. Car­ni­val is bac­cha­nal. That’s what bring me out!

“The im­por­tance of Car­ni­val is to keep the cul­ture. But crime, we have to do some­thing about it, but home is home. Lewwe love up one an­oth­er and keep the crime down,” El­lie said.

Out on the drag, a man who re­ferred to him­self as Vine­yard, pranced and moved, un­moved by the beat­ing af­ter­noon hot sun. In a trance, he be­lieved Car­ni­val held the key to tap­ping in­to the fullest po­ten­tial of the coun­try’s youth.

“Car­ni­val, not on­ly from a par­ty­ing as­pect but from an ed­u­ca­tion as­pect is very im­por­tant—where we came from, where we want to go and what keeps us hav­ing some kind of peace in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“We need to have cre­ative out­lets for the young peo­ple so that it would keep their minds away from neg­a­tive in­flu­ences,” he said be­fore, re­turn­ing to his trance.

In his sailor out­fit, All Stars mas­quer­ad­er Kent looked on at the Sa­van­nah stage through a hazy, or­ange plume of dust, from a dis­tance, as he walked to­wards Bel­mont. He had his fix but was still on a high.

“I live abroad. Every­thing about Car­ni­val brings me home - Panora­ma, the whole oc­ca­sion. I en­joy all the fes­ti­vals.

“The on­ly thing I don’t like is the prices of Car­ni­val events—to play mas etc. I think the reg­u­lar man can­not af­ford it. It’s very im­por­tant to pro­vide ac­cess for the reg­u­lar per­son,” he said.

On one of the Sa­van­nah bench­es, a man sat with his three young nephews, talk­ing about mas. They came from Las Cuevas.

“Well, I be­lieve the Car­ni­val will nev­er die be­cause of the ju­nior Car­ni­val, ju­nior pan and pan in school that will keep this go­ing and go­ing,” he said.