Newsgathering Editor
kejan.haynes@guardian.co.tt
For Lost Tribe’s Valmiki Maharaj, the third Band of the Year title is no less sweet.
The band copped both the National Carnival Commission (NCC) and Downtown Carnival’s top honours with the presentation Fly.
“It’s a blessing,” Maharaj said during a celebration at the band’s Woodbrook mas camp last evening.
He noted that this Carnival was a different energy for him and his team. He said it ended with one of the best road experiences he’s ever had.
“I felt a sense of peace at the end of it. When you end up in a situation where you receive the accolades and respect from your cohorts from the industry, that’s a great feeling,” Maharaj said.
Some of those accolades also came from legendary local designer Peter Elias, who made it a point to say Maharaj was more than a designer but was a born leader who has the adoration and respect of a large team, without whom there would be no band.
While portraying birds aren’t new to the Carnival landscape, the band’s theme used birds from Trinidad and Tobago, which he said was to express freedom.
“The birds that we used weren’t the birds of the world which are equally as beautiful, but rather the birds of Trinidad and Tobago we interact with on a daily basis like the Scarlet Ibis, which we love as our own, and the wild parrots which fly around the mas camp every day, and, of course, the corbeaux which I pass every day coming into town!”
He called 2023’s Carnival, the first after a two-year COVID-19 hiatus, chaotic. In comparison, he said this year was peace.
“It was much better. You felt it not only in the music but in the personality and energy of the people you met and interacted with.”
He said he can’t for 2025.
Meanwhile, a short distance away, the Kinetic Mas camp was also electric.
Lead designer Ronald Guy James was celebrating his medium category win.
The portrayal, Yokoso, which means ‘welcome’ in Japanese, was the second victory for the band. For Guy James, the costumes were meant to stand out in a way that anyone seeing a lone masquerader walking through Port-of-Spain could immediately know to which band they belonged.
While the inspiration came from Japan, it was important not to be offensive to Japanese culture, so from the get-go, the Japanese embassy was consulted, he said.
“We were consulting with them before we even did anything because we didn’t want to offend them,” James said.
“At the same time, we want to bring a band that’s pleasing and authentic.”
He said he hopes this type of mas will bring spectators back into seats and into the streets.
“Hopefully, they bring people back into the Savannah to watch mas. Because at the end of the day, let’s face it, a bikini is a bikini is a bikini. When you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it.”
