Sascha Wil­son

Three cham­pi­ons, in­clud­ing a new­com­er, were crowned dur­ing the South Monarch in San Fer­nan­do on Thurs­day night.

Jah­mar­ley Bis­nath and Al­li­son John won South King and Queen of the Car­ni­val while Kyle “KC” Cowie was crowned South Ca­lyp­so Monarch dur­ing the South Monarch com­pe­ti­tion at Har­ris Prom­e­nade.

Twen­ty-six-year-old Bis­nath’s win­ning cos­tume, Scare­crow, which he per­formed on ten-foot-eight-inch stilts, was from the band Pan Mas Tra­di­tions.

While it was his first time en­ter­ing the com­pe­ti­tion, Bis­nath had no prob­lem bring­ing his por­tray­al to life, as he has been walk­ing on stilts since he was a tod­dler.

Bis­nath, the son of Kaisokah Moko Jumbies founder Ju­nior Bis­nath, ad­mit­ted it had been a long time since he had en­tered a com­pe­ti­tion.

“Com­pe­ti­tion is some­thing I go in­to with a lot of vigour. Some­times it could be a lil hel­ter-skel­ter, but for me, the en­er­gy that I put out there, even though crazi­ness hap­pens, we al­ways reach out there and get it done, and most times we ace it.”

En­cour­ag­ing peo­ple who felt pas­sion­ate­ly about the art­form to fol­low their pas­sion, he said, “It brings a lot of hap­pi­ness to me per­son­al­ly. When I am on stilts, my mind is clear. My spir­it is free. I’m see­ing a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive than any­body else, and I am taller than any­body else, so it’s a re­al­ly nice feel­ing.”

Thir­ty-four-year-old John cap­tured the ti­tle for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, and both por­tray­als were from Kalicha­ran Car­ni­val.

John, who beau­ti­ful­ly and mas­ter­ful­ly por­trayed her cos­tume, The Sou­venir Doll, told Guardian Me­dia, “I am ex­cit­ed and hap­py be­cause en­ter­ing this, my goal was to re­store Car­ni­val in South Trinidad to the for­mer glo­ry it would have had.”

Over the years, she said the ma­jor mas play­ers, de­sign­ers and mas­men mi­grat­ed to Port-of-Spain and caused a brain drain in San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val.

John, who has been play­ing mas from the ten­der age of three, added, “We want South mas to strive, and I’m just hap­py and joy­ful about this.”

Mean­while, Cowie said he need­ed this win as he had been hav­ing a tough sea­son.

“This add some­thing pos­i­tive to it, and we end­ing on the high,” he said.

Cowie placed sec­ond in the Young King com­pe­ti­tion, but he did not qual­i­fy for Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, which was dis­ap­point­ing since he had “out­stand­ing” per­for­mances in his ca­lyp­so tent, Klas­sic Ru­so.

How­ev­er, Cowie said, the South Ca­lyp­so Monarch was close to his heart be­cause many of his close rel­a­tives were from south Trinidad, and the on­ly oth­er com­pe­ti­tion he ever won was the So­ca cat­e­go­ry in the South Monarch in 2015.

“I think I am the on­ly per­son to win both cat­e­gories in the South Monarch. It feels great. I am hum­bled by it, and I am hum­bled by the au­di­ence.”

Not­ing that the show start­ed late and there were au­dio and sound sys­tem dif­fi­cul­ties, as well as stage chal­lenges, he said he un­der­stood it was a work in progress and it’s a new com­mit­tee, but he was hop­ing for im­prove­ments.

“We had a lot of dif­fi­cul­ties. I just had to re­main fo­cused and go out there and do the job, and even­tu­al­ly, we came out vic­to­ri­ous.” His self-com­posed ren­di­tion, West­ern Town, was about the gun vi­o­lence in the coun­try. The com­pe­ti­tion, which kicked off two and a half hours late at 9.30 pm, was of­fi­cial­ly opened by San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris and con­clud­ed some­time af­ter 1 am. Un­like pre­vi­ous times, the re­sults were not an­nounced af­ter the show.