KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val may have been short of $200,000 this year, but mas­quer­aders, young and old, slim and volup­tuous, be­came liv­ing brush­es, splash­ing the city’s grey can­vas with ri­otous paint, mud and pow­der. In the south­ern dawn, J’Ou­vert blos­somed, wild and un­bro­ken, across the as­phalt in what San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris be­lieves was the “biggest J’Ou­vert in the coun­try”.

Eigh­teen bands com­pet­ed for tro­phies this year, de­spite the ab­sence of prize mon­ey. Par­ris told Guardian Me­dia the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee want­ed to make a state­ment with this year’s cel­e­bra­tion, re­it­er­at­ing his plea that San Fer­nan­do needs bet­ter treat­ment re­gard­ing fund­ing, as it is the coun­try’s sec­ond city.

Kalicha­ran Mas co-band­leader, Ster­ling Ma­hase, who played with DJ Ana and Ul­tra Sim­mo’s Glam Jam J’Ou­vert, said that de­spite the fund­ing con­straints, every­one was en­joy­ing them­selves. “Next year will be a bet­ter year. Hope­ful­ly, we get prize mon­ey so every­body is just fet­ing and hav­ing a good time this year, and it is a big turnout,” Ma­hase said.

Spec­ta­tors in var­i­ous out­fits lined Cof­fee Street, Cipero Street, and the Rien­zi Kir­ton High­way, some with cool­ers, chairs, and um­brel­las to view the bands. Among the kalei­do­scop­ic por­tray­als was Ane­mics Car­ni­val with its pre­sen­ta­tion of Olympia. The band fea­tured women in gold biki­nis, some cov­ered with white T-shirts and gold shorts, while the men donned white tees and buck­et hats.

Po­lit­i­cal the­atre rolled on­to the road with Bman and Lord Street Fu­sion Fam­i­ly Events’ Clowno­ra­ma. The pre­sen­ta­tion fea­tured clown-themed mas­quer­aders rid­ing bi­cy­cles and scoot­ers while jam­ming to clown mu­sic. It in­clud­ed record­ings of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “load up the mat­ic” state­ments dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign, the bud­get de­bate ex­change be­tween Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen, and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath’s vi­ral per­for­mance at the re­cent Hy­att Lime fete.

De­fend­ing J’Ou­vert cham­pi­ons Dev’s Bar­ber­shop Crew brought one of the largest par­ties on the road with Touch­down, mark­ing the band’s 20th an­niver­sary. It fea­tured Fan­zone, a pink-and-black dis­play of sup­port, fol­lowed by black-and-white striped ref­er­ees. Cheer­lead­ers show­cased the sex­i­ness of mod­ern mas, with blue-and-white monoki­nis blend­ing with those wear­ing Amer­i­can foot­ball jer­seys.

Like a Stink n Dut­ty crowd, Glam Jam J’Ou­vert mas­quer­aders were cov­ered in paint as they jammed be­hind the mu­sic truck in the last cov­er of night. As sun­light crept up, D Im­age Peo­ple pranced along the as­phalt with Dis Is Mas, pre­sent­ing bac­cha­nal, con­fu­sion and la couray in red-and-blue monoki­nis and T-shirts. Though small­er than in pre­vi­ous years, they showed that en­er­gy was mea­sured not in num­bers but in pas­sion.

Mud joined the mas with Ja­ma Pro­duc­tions’ Back To Earth, where ma­ture play­ers in sim­ple white T-shirts rev­elled in brown earth, threat­en­ing to dash spec­ta­tors and judges alike. Fan­ta­sia fol­lowed with a wet fete at­mos­phere, its wa­ter truck spray­ing frol­ick­ing mas­quer­aders and wash­ing away lay­ers of paint and mud. While San Fer­nan­do mas is of­ten seen as sec­ond to Port-of-Spain, it stood in a class of its own, com­bin­ing the raw­ness of J’Ou­vert with the ameni­ties of mod­ern mas, in­clud­ing mov­ing drinks bars and toi­let fa­cil­i­ties.

And if the Road March had to be de­cid­ed by what played on the road, Voice’s Cyah Be­have, Machel Mon­tano’s En­core and Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Still a Road Man were among the DJs’ top se­lec­tions. Al­so blast­ing from the speak­ers were Full Blown’s Re­spect­ful­ly Yours, Brave­boy’s Love on D Road and Chris­to’s Doux Doux Dar­lin. Chut­ney so­ca found a space too, with Rasi­ka Din­di­al’s Pong De Damanole and La­dy La­va and Ravi B’s Cyah Pick keep­ing pace with the so­ca rhythms.

Car­ni­val Mon­day passed with­out in­ci­dent, ac­cord­ing to po­lice. Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­varo and his en­tourage made a brief tour of the south­ern cel­e­bra­tions. Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Garvin Si­mon said that by the end of the morn­ing’s ac­tiv­i­ty, there had been no ma­jor in­ci­dents or is­sues re­quir­ing po­lice in­ter­ven­tion, sum­ming it up as safe.

In an­oth­er part of South Trinidad, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin spent part of their morn­ing cel­e­brat­ing J’Ou­vert in Bar­rack­pore.