Pe­ter Ray Blood

This past week has been one of the most eerie of my en­tire life. I am still hav­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence not un­like an out-of-body one-as if I had died and was wit­ness­ing my fu­ner­al with eu­lo­gies be­ing read. Up­on an­nounc­ing the at­tain­ment of re­tire­ment age, I have been del­uged in a tor­rent of con­grat­u­la­tions and best wish­es, some re­al­ly touch­ing plau­dits and com­ments; some from the most un­like­ly of folk. It is al­most as though some of you are hap­py to see the back of me. (That's sup­posed to be an "lol" quip) The week has been a kind of roller-coast­er ride for me as I have been very for­tu­nate, un­like most peo­ple, to hear and re­ceive all the won­der­ful things peo­ple think of me, as well as ac­co­lades of the 32-year stew­ard­ship in me­dia. This kind of stuff is usu­al­ly re­served for one's fu­ner­al; most times we eu­lo­gise and re­ward the good deeds of a man af­ter he is dead.

So, to­day I am us­ing this space to say a gen­uine thank you to all of you who called or con­veyed your opin­ion of me via the so­cial net­work. You have re­in­forced my com­mit­ment to sus­tain Pulse faith­ful­ly every Fri­day un­til I am un­able to write, or un­til the news­pa­per de­cides to put it to bed. Let me al­so take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­close that I shall be back at T&T Guardian in a new ca­pac­i­ty, as of June 18, as arts & en­ter­tain­ment ed­i­tor. Ac­cord­ing to my su­pe­ri­ors, the po­si­tion is all-en­com­pass­ing as their vi­sion is to mar­ry all as­pects of A&E cov­er­age un­der one um­brel­la for the Guardian Me­dia Group, em­brac­ing press, ra­dio and TV. So, here goes my first episode of Pulse as a se­nior cit­i­zen. I con­sid­er it ob­scene that al­most one mil­lion dol­lars can be spent for one cit­i­zen to go globe-trot­ting while the first prize for the 2012 Steel­band Bomb Com­pe­ti­tion is $11,000, and steel­band's um­brel­la body has had to beg for fund­ing an­nu­al­ly since 1963.

One, just one, cor­po­rate cit­i­zen (NL­CB, which by the way is a state en­ti­ty) has sup­port­ed the all-im­por­tant event in Car­ni­val through the years. But, to get to the heart of this week's bee in my bon­net, it is my in­for­ma­tion that the Pan-in-the-Class­room Unit is to be dis­band­ed and re­placed by some airy-fairy Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Mu­sic Pro­gramme Unit. Ap­par­ent­ly some­one in au­thor­i­ty has opined that the steel­pan should not have a priv­i­leged mu­si­cal sta­tus in the na­tion's schools, and is an in­stru­ment on par with with the dho­lak and har­mo­ni­um, and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al eth­nic and na­tion­al in­stru­ments. Let's cut to the chase and call Jack a Jack. The steel­pan is the on­ly in­stru­ment ever in­vent­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The steel­pan wasn't in­vent­ed in Africa, like the djem­be; in Chi­na, like the chaozhou dagu; in Syr­ia, like the dar­bu­ka; in Eu­rope, like the vi­o­lin or harp; and, def­i­nite­ly, it was not in­vent­ed in In­dia, like the dho­lak. The steel­pan was in­vent­ed right here, by sons of our soil, many of whom lit­er­al­ly paid a price with their blood and do­ing jail time while prop­a­gat­ing this most unique in­stru­ment. In short, the steel­pan is our on­ly in­dige­nous in­stru­ment, well de­serv­ing of its pres­ti­gious ti­tle of na­tion­al in­stru­ment, as des­ig­nat­ed by the NAR gov­ern­ment. To para­phrase an ar­ti­cle by my for­mer col­league Suni­ty Ma­haraj: "The steel­pan stands as tes­ti­mo­ny to our ca­pac­i­ty to in­no­vate, to think crit­i­cal­ly and to solve one prob­lem af­ter an­oth­er; and to do so with noth­ing but the pow­er of our minds and the com­mit­ment of our pas­sion."

It is a fact that our home-bred na­tion­al in­stru­ment is per­haps the best dis­ci­pli­nar­i­an there is, sup­port­ed by sev­er­al suc­cess sto­ries through the years. I re­mem­ber, way back as a child, when my late un­cle head­ed NATTS (Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T Steel­bands­men), Andy Narell's fa­ther us­ing pan as a rem­e­dy to curb tru­an­cy, crime and vi­o­lence in Harlem, USA. In fact, it was this rev­o­lu­tion­ary pro­gramme which spawned Narell to be­come one of the world's fore­most pan­nists to­day, not to men­tion the crime rate in Harlem dropped sig­nif­i­cant­ly when the pro­gramme took root. It is a well-kept se­cret that in T&T to­day many tu­tors, over­whelmed by vi­o­lent, in­dis­ci­plined stu­dents, have been us­ing pan as a balm to curb and soothe the tru­an­cy of their charges. One such mu­sic tu­tor told me just last week that the best dis­ci­plined chil­dren in his charge are those who play pan. Trust me, this isn't pro­pa­gan­da as there are records and re­sults to sup­port this hy­poth­e­sis. An­oth­er tu­tor in a Laven­tille school told me as well: "I took the dun­ci­est kids to learn pan and by the time they grad­u­at­ed they were amongst the school's bright­est and best dis­ci­plined stu­dents."

At present, there is no eq­ui­ty in the dis­burse­ment of fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance by both the Gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate T&T. Ac­cord­ing to Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, "The na­tion­al in­stru­ment is po­ten­tial­ly more lu­cra­tive than nat­ur­al gas," yet still those who can help de­vel­op and turn pan in­to a gold mine con­tin­ue to be ret­i­cent in of­fer­ing tan­gi­ble help. It con­tin­ues to be all piece­meal and ma­m­aguy to­kenism, when giv­en is tak­en back by the bene­fac­tor by way of ei­ther blocks of com­pli­men­ta­ry seat­ing or un­rea­son­able ad­ver­tis­ing brand­ing and con­tra de­mands. Hav­ing es­tab­lished just a few salient facts about our na­tion­al in­stru­ment that may have es­caped those who seem hell­bent on im­ple­ment­ing their Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Mu­sic Pro­gramme Unit, all I can say is leave well enough alone, do what is right and right­eous, and leave the Pan-in-the-Class­room Unit alone. Let us cul­ti­vate a brighter fu­ture for our young peo­ple through the ve­hi­cle of the steel­pan.