Yvonne Webb

The jour­ney be­gan in 1871, with 16 chil­dren of In­den­tured In­di­ans, in a make shift class­room in San Fer­nan­do. Now, 140 glo­ri­ous years lat­er, stu­dents, teach­ers and friends of Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School were able to cap­ture the school's evo­lu­tion, through arts and cul­ture.Un­der the theme from In­den­ture­ship to Lead­er­ship, mas­ter of cer­e­monies Hans­ley Ajo­da gave a crisp ac­count of the road Cana­di­an mis­sion­ary Rev­erend Ken­neth Grant trav­elled, when he im­ple­ment­ed his plan to ed­u­cate, em­pow­er and con­vert im­pov­er­ished In­den­tured ser­vants to Chris­tian­i­ty.

Through song, dance, mono­logues, po­et­ry, ca­lyp­so, in­stru­men­tal en­sem­ble, in­clud­ing the pan, the sto­ry was told of Rev Grant's de­sire to ed­u­cate the In­den­tured ser­vants and their off­springs.The con­cert was ded­i­cat­ed to gift­ed mu­sic teacher Vic­tor Chu­ra­man, who is due to re­tire af­ter 24 years. With his trust­ed gui­tar, Chu­ra­man chose as his farewell per­for­mance, Dust in The Wind, ac­com­pa­nied by equal­ly tal­ent­ed vi­o­lin­ist Anslem Wal­ters. Wal­ters, just back from an in­ter­na­tion­al tour, al­so gave a stel­lar so­lo per­for­mance.

As Ajo­dah spoke, the boys and girls, mount­ed the stage of Na­pari­ma Bowl, San Fer­nan­do, re-en­act­ing each step, through the mul­ti­fac­eted cul­tur­al art forms with which T&T is so blessed.A uni­ty dance, em­brac­ing the cul­ture and the cos­mopoli­tan mix of our peo­ple, kick start­ed the con­cert on No­vem­ber 13. A med­ley of lo­cal songs, in­clud­ing the pop­u­lar Ja­ha­ji Bhai and Ganges meet the Nile, were ap­pro­pri­ate­ly cho­sen for the ex­e­cu­tion of this num­ber.

An­oth­er dance num­ber ti­tled, Twin­kle, Twin­kle Star, ex­em­pli­fied the achieve­ment of the first fe­male stu­dent to win an ex­hi­bi­tion ex­am schol­ar­ship in 1922, and the oth­ers who have fol­lowed in her foot­steps since.Co­me­di­an Tom­my Joseph, who has a grand child at­tend­ing the school, re­al­ly amused the au­di­ence with his take on the state of emer­gency and the now in­fa­mous cur­few.

On No­vem­ber 18, two mati­nee shows were held for pupils at the same venue. On this oc­ca­sion, reign­ing Chut­ney So­ca Monarch Rik­ki Jai, a Grant School par­ent, graced the stage, in­tro­duc­ing the Ad­vent sea­son with a parang num­ber. First run­ner up in the Dig­i­cel Ris­ing Stars com­pe­ti­tion, Reena Ram­saran and Er­ick­son Ramk­le­wan, both had the au­di­ence on their feet with two gospel se­lec­tions, My Re­deemer Lives and You Raised Me Up.