RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

More spec­ta­tors but few­er mas­quer­aders gath­ered on the streets of San Fer­nan­do on Car­ni­val Tues­day as 11 bands par­tic­pat­ed in the city’s Pa­rade of the Bands.

As promised by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, po­lice of­fi­cers were seen man­ning every street cor­ner as they reg­u­lat­ed a smooth flow of traf­fic.

Fam­i­ly-led band Jages­sar Cos­tumes was the first to ap­pear at the judg­ing point on High Street at 12:17 pm, with its 2020 Car­ni­val por­tray­al ti­tled Un­tamed Ter­ri­to­ry.

Danc­ing to the so­ca hit Conch Shell, Jages­sar Sr per­formed the fa­mous In­di­an chant be­fore the var­i­ous sec­tions gave in to the rev­el­ry.

At 1:14 pm, South­ern Mas As­so­ciates came be­fore the judges with its por­tray­al of Danc­ing Na­tive Spir­it.

This was fol­lowed by a well-chore­o­graphed por­tray­al of Ivan Kallicha­ran’s Street Jam which paid trib­ute to the col­lo­qui­al dances evolv­ing out of Trin­bag­on­ian Car­ni­val over the years. The sev­en sec­tions fea­tured Is­sa Vy­bz, Mon­ster Wine, Palance, Wot­less, Melee, Pumpin and Ra­ma­jay and like Jages­sar’s Cos­tumes, the mas­quer­aders gy­rat­ed to Conch Shell.

Kes and Iw­er George’s so­ca-hit Stage Gone Bad blared through­out High Street when Fire­works Pro­mo­tions pre­sent­ed their por­tray­al of Fan­tasies and Fairy­tales.

The pre­sen­ta­tion ex­plored the role of pop­u­lar myths, leg­ends and fairy tales in­clud­ing Pe­ter Pan’s Nev­er­land, Phoenix, He­roes, Ma­toa­ka, Beast­ly, Dracarys and Wakan­da.

By 4 pm, the street be­came en­shroud­ed in white when the sailors from White and Pow­der 2020 gala­vant­ed up the street in a spec­tac­u­lar dis­play of pow­er.

“It’s nice to see so many peo­ple do­ing sailor mas in San Fer­nan­do this year,” May­or Ju­nia Re­grel­lo re­marked in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia. He said San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val should be the cat­a­lyst for a re­vi­tal­iza­tion of tra­di­tion­al mas across the coun­try. How­ev­er, Re­grel­lo said he no­ticed a de­cline in the num­bers of mas­quer­aders this year. Even Jages­sar Cos­tumes re­port­ed about 75 few­er mas­quer­aders com­pared to last year.

Re­grel­lo said the coun­try was go­ing through a tough eco­nom­ic pe­ri­od but he was cer­tain that the project sched­uled for the city will bring about eco­nom­ic re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion. He called on busi­ness own­ers to sup­port San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val.

How­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce (GSACC) Ki­ran Singh said he was dis­ap­point­ed that wreck­ing con­tin­ued on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day. Say­ing this had dis­cour­aged par­tic­i­pa­tion in San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val, Singh said he want­ed a re­vis­i­ta­tion of this next year.

By 4 pm, Just Il­lu­sions’s Ex­ot­ic Realm led by band­leader Ronald Tay­lor ap­peared be­fore the judges.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young who toured the streets of San Fer­nan­do said he was pleased with the San Fer­nan­do Mas. Like in Port-of-Spain, Young said the glass bot­tle ban was work­ing well.

He said the Min­istry was us­ing tech­nol­o­gy to mon­i­tor all as­pects of T&T Car­ni­val to en­sure that mas­quer­aders were safe.

Say­ing he was thrilled with the tra­di­tion­al mas, Young said, “The great thing about south mas is its tra­di­tion­al mas. The San Fer­nan­do mas is beau­ti­ful and see­ing this old tra­di­tion­al mas is good be­cause the younger gen­er­a­tions could get a chance to look at it.”

This year, a to­tal of eleven Car­ni­val bands reg­is­tered for the pa­rade of the bands in south. All of the bands turned down their mu­sic as promised when they passed by the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal and the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.