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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Ravi B ?is chutney king

by

20100203

It was tru­ly a pre­sen­ta­tion be­fit­ting a king as Ravi Bis­samb­har pulled out all the stops in his bid to be crowned the 2010 NL­CB Chut­ney So­ca Monarch. From ly­ing down on a couch pushed on­stage by beau­ti­ful women, to dec­o­rat­ing his tor­so with body paint, to the ap­pear­ance of Ba­jan So­ca di­va Al­i­son Hinds as part of his en­tourage, Bis­samb­har (more pop­u­lar­ly known as Ravi B) left no stone un­turned as he sang his way to the cham­pi­onship. With the ti­tle be­ing de­cid­ed by text vot­ing, pop­u­lar­i­ty was un­doubt­ed­ly a huge de­ter­min­ing fac­tor and Ravi B, with his song, A Drinker, went in­to the com­pe­ti­tion be­ing one of the favourites to win. By the end of his per­for­mance, which in­clud­ed cock­tail wait­ress­es, Shiv Shak­ti dancers and an im­pres­sive py­rotech­nics dis­play, the Kar­ma front­line singer ex­it­ed the stage as the un­of­fi­cial win­ner.

The fi­nal re­sults did not change what was al­ready on the minds and in the mouths of the thou­sands of pa­trons as Ravi B was of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced as the monarch, amass­ing 9,527 votes, al­most dou­ble that of sec­ond place fin­ish­er Rik­ki Jai, who on­ly man­aged 4,872. New­com­er to the Chut­ney So­ca scene Moses Charles, who sang the im­mense­ly pop­u­lar In­drani, fin­ished third with 2060 votes, while Kris Per­sad's per­for­mance of Na­dia was good enough to get him 1988 votes and fourth place. For their ef­forts, the top four win­ners were award­ed $200,000, $100,000, $60,000 and $40,000 re­spec­tive­ly, while the re­main­ing fi­nal­ists were each guar­an­teed a purse of $30,000. Dressed as a ro­bot from a pop­u­lar movie, Rik­ki Jai, a for­mer monarch, got the crowd go­ing as he told them he was low on en­er­gy and need­ed his Guin­ness and Pun­cheon to boost him up.

Charles, who re­lied heav­i­ly on the sheer pop­u­lar­i­ty of his song, did not put as much em­pha­sis in­to the on­stage pre­sen­ta­tion as did the oth­er com­peti­tors, while Per­sad, on the oth­er hand, gave it his all, end­ing his ren­di­tion and rid­ing off the stage on a white horse. Al­so de­liv­er­ing strong per­for­mances were fifth- and sixth-placed fin­ish­ers Omar­dath Maraj and Lalchan "Hunter" Bab­wah, who per­formed The Army and Bring de Pun­cheon, re­spec­tive­ly. How­ev­er, last year's monarch Ken­neth Sal­ick, who opened the com­pe­ti­tion, failed to gen­er­ate the sup­port need­ed to even grant him a place among the top six, as his per­for­mance of his com­pe­ti­tion, How Long, failed to move the crowd. Oth­er per­for­mances in­clud­ed that of Dil-e-Nadan singer Der­rick Seales, who sang Chut­ney and Lovers; So­ca Elvis singing Rum Doh Both­er Me; Andy Singh with Girl From In­dia; Nee­shan "Hit­man" Prab­hoo, who sang Span­ner; and, Heer­alal Ram­per­tap with Re­vival.

As heav­i­ly armed po­lice of­fi­cers kept watch, the pa­trons jumped and pranced well in­to the night, stop­ping on­ly to make fre­quent trips to the bar. In ad­di­tion to the com­peti­tors, en­ter­tain­ment was pro­vid­ed by a host of oth­er tal­ents, in­clud­ing Moko jumbies, Anil Bheem and Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter, as well as bands Kar­ma, BM­RZ, JMC 3Veni, Spread Pal Crew and the Gay­a­tones. As the re­sults were an­nounced, short­ly be­fore 3 am, an elat­ed Ravi B em­braced and even bowed and touched the shoe of Rik­ki Jai, whom he hailed as one of his men­tors in the so­ca chut­ney are­na. "Now, Kar­ma is the Chut­ney So­ca monarch. I will make you a monarch that you all can be proud of," he said as he was hoist­ed on­to the shoul­ders of his friends.


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