As the Grandmaster of Calypso, Lord Kitchener, sang over four decades ago “… all I can see is some broken old bottles…an indication that the Carnival is over”. It remains one of Kitchener’s most plaintive of melodies, one in which he wraps a complicated mourning and yearning for what has gone, to return, only differently.
The hope is for the authenticity, depicted in the traditional characters of the masquerade, the music, the discipline and magic of the steelband yards, the calypso, the artistry of the wire-benders and costume makers, and Kitchener’s non-verbalised yearning for that creative self to remain to guide.
Kitchie must surely want us to retain the Carnival creativity of our minds and culture, the messages, not just dump them on the heap of history, discarded as being of no use in our day-to-day living. Yes, there is now a Carnival Museum which can hold a couple of the creative costumes generated by the mind; but more than that, the Grandmaster yearns for the mindset of the Carnival to be incorporated into the workshop of our everyday lives, so he does not feel the emptiness of existence without our cultural creations.
There must surely be space in the edifices we construct and call homes, corporate offices, and state buildings, for the creativity of Carnival to replace the conformist glass and concrete-block structures which lock-out the wonder of the Caribbean environment.
We must surely use the colour of our lives displayed at Carnival to adorn our towns, villages and cities; yes, make of them Carnivals of colour (look what the Dutch Caribbean has done with its colours) and resourcefulness. Use the management systems of the steelbands and mas bands; the discipline under which the steelband arrangers, calypso/soca composers (as Machel and many others before him established as being one); use what Mical Teja says is in our DNA to inspire us through the rest of the year.
We must be able to flip the discs to create theme music conscious of the religious period to help those who seek to atone for what they may consider their sins of revelry and licentiousness. Decades ago, then Catholic Archbishop Anthony Pantin, a “true true Trini to de bone”, challenged the Mighty Sparrow to sing a calypso to the Lord.
It’s an opening for his present day successor, Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon and the Evangelical leaders, who long ago warned their flocks of the licentiousness of the Carnival, to urge the calypsonians and musicians to fill the yawning gap so the religious can feel the vibes of the culture and so not have to turn to 18th and 19th century hymns to express a connection with the Holy One.
How do we incorporate the arts and crafts of Carnival into our daily lives, the buildings, the creativity of our existence? Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher must adapt and extend the formula of Carnival policing to keep the criminals under control now “that the Carnival is over”.
What arises now is for us to respond to the loneliness of Kitchener, as he was faced with a period when the artistes had to lock-away their creative, indigenous DNA to become another creature.
