Derek Achong

A reg­u­lar com­peti­tor and a rel­a­tive new­com­er to se­nior com­pe­ti­tion have been crowned this year's Car­ni­val King and Queen. Af­ter par­tic­i­pat­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion for eight years, Ray­mond Mark fi­nal­ly got his hands on the top prize at the end of the Di­manche Gras show on Mon­day morn­ing at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. It was the sec­ond time in the se­nior com­pe­ti­tion for the new­ly crowned Car­ni­val Queen Priya Na­gas­sar. 

Speak­ing to jour­nal­ists af­ter be­ing crowned, the 22-year-old ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant was clear­ly over­whelmed by her achieve­ment. 

"I thought I was dream­ing. When I came up, I asked the an­nounc­er to pinch me. I could not be­lieve it," she said. 

She thanked God and her fam­i­ly for sup­port­ing her. 

"This is the best year of my life," she said. 

Na­gas­sar, who pre­vi­ous­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Ju­nior Car­ni­val Queen com­pe­ti­tion, ex­plained that she start­ed play­ing mas when she was four years old.

She said her grand­moth­er in­tro­duced her to Curepe-based band Hot Stuff Pro­mo­tions and band­leader Franklyn Jagdeo. 

Na­gas­sar's vic­to­ry in the com­pe­ti­tion added to Jagdeo's im­pres­sive car­ni­val de­sign tro­phy haul, hav­ing en­joyed suc­cess in past ju­nior com­pe­ti­tions. 

She said that she was ex­cit­ed to de­fend her crown next year. 

"I am go­ing to come out and do what I do. I hope it will bring great suc­cess as it did this time," she said.

Like Na­gas­sar, Mark was al­so heart­ened by the out­come.

"Af­ter eight years of be­ing in the com­pe­ti­tion and yes be­ing in the fi­nals but to ac­tu­al­ly come in first place as King of Car­ni­val, words can­not be­gin to ex­plain," he said. 
"It is a fan­tas­tic ex­pe­ri­ence," he added.  

Mark, who led the de­sign theme for his cos­tume, did not take all the cred­it. 

"I have to say thanks to my team. It is an ef­fort from every­one. It is not just one per­son," Mark said. 

He said that he and his team were able to per­fect their de­sign by in­cor­po­rat­ing suc­cess­ful el­e­ments of pre­vi­ous less suc­cess­ful por­tray­als. 

"There are a few things we have been play­ing with over a num­ber of years, and fi­nal­ly it paid off," he said, as he thanked mas­ter wire ben­der Ernesto Jar­dine for en­cour­ag­ing him to join the mas fra­ter­ni­ty. 

In the Car­ni­val King com­pe­ti­tion, there was an epic Cen­tral Amer­i­can bat­tle, straight out of the pages of his­to­ry, for first and sec­ond place with Mark's Mayan mythol­o­gy-themed pre­sen­ta­tion "The Feath­ered Ser­pent Crea­ture–Ku Kul Kan" man­ag­ing to re­pel a fierce at­tack from bat­tle-hard­ened Ted Eu­stace's "El Con­quis­ta­dor". 

Mark's cos­tume fea­tured him dressed as a Mayan high priest con­trol­ling a men­ac­ing feath­ered ser­pent whose eyes glowed green with the lights at the stage dimmed. 

The ser­pent's mouth hissed and smoked as it ap­peared to threat­en to breathe fire if Mark so com­mand­ed. 

As is typ­i­cal with por­tray­als by his fam­i­ly, Eu­stace's cos­tume, which al­so fea­tured a ser­pent theme, was grand yet in­tri­cate as it took up al­most the en­tire width of the stage. Eu­stace, who was hop­ing to cop his fifth crown and add to his fam­i­ly's his­toric tro­phy cab­i­net, was dressed in the shin­ing ar­mour of a Span­ish con­quis­ta­dor and still man­aged to ef­fort­less­ly ma­noeu­vre the weighty cos­tume across the stage. 

His cos­tume fea­tured a bunch of ser­pents, sur­round­ed by skele­tal con­quis­ta­dors, which Eu­stace raised me­chan­i­cal­ly dur­ing his per­for­mance. 

In the Car­ni­val Queens com­pe­ti­tion, Na­gas­sar emerged vic­to­ri­ous over nine com­peti­tors, whose por­tray­als eas­i­ly dwarfed hers in size.

Her por­tray­al "The Moth­er of All Car­ni­vals–Cel­e­bra­tions", which bor­rowed the theme of this year's Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions fea­tured mul­ti-coloured fab­ric with a fo­cus on gold. It was de­signed by band­leader Jagdeo and de­sign­er Rishi Sookdeo with Na­gas­sar se­lect­ing Machel Mon­tano and Patrice Roberts' Like Yuh Self to cross the stage. 

Marie Eligon's lim­bo-in­spired cos­tume "Cleans­ing Fire" earned her sec­ond place and fea­tured light­ing to de­pict white fire and was de­cep­tive­ly sim­ple. 

Both Na­gas­sar and Eligon were able to out­do their com­peti­tors with much larg­er cos­tumes as they were both able to ef­fort­less­ly glide across the stage while oth­ers laboured to do so. 

Last year's Car­ni­val Queen Shynel Brizan came in third place with her moko jumbie-themed pre­sen­ta­tion. 

Brizan ap­peared to be ham­pered by the pre­car­i­ous stage, which was made slip­pery with in­ter­mit­tent show­ers at the open-air venue, as her team sought to en­sure that it was thor­ough­ly dry-mopped be­fore she be­gan. 

Last year's Car­ni­val King Joseph Lewis suf­fered a sim­i­lar fate with his blue dev­il-in­spired cos­tume as he too placed third in the com­pe­ti­tion. 
Brizan and Lewis al­so shared the top prize in 2019. 

Car­ni­val King Re­sults

1. Ray­mond Mark-The Feath­ered Ser­pent Crea­ture "Ku Kul Kan"
2. Ted Eu­stace-El Con­quis­ta­dor
3. Joseph Lewis-"Ude­veli Oluh­laza"-The Haunt­ed Jab of Can­boulay
4. Kyle An­tho­ny Matas-Cre­atio Ex Nih­lo-The Eter­nal Source Of Light Devine
5. Ravi Lakhan-Trib­ute-Jesters of the Taint­ed Past 
6. Joel Lewis-Wa­ter­fall Or­a­cle
7. Rus­sell Grant-The Res­ur­rec­tion Mule
8. Ronald Bar­ney Blaize-Lega­cy of the Mighty Spar­tans 
9. Mar­lon Ram­per­sad-Hades King of the Un­der­world 
10. Tekel Syl­van-Be­lieve It Or Not They Are Here

Car­ni­val Queen Re­sults

1. Priya Na­gas­sar-The Moth­er Of All Car­ni­vals-Cel­e­bra­tions
2. Marie Eligon-Cleans­ing Fire
3. Shynel Brizan-Aimee, A Dancer Of Free­dom's Cousin­ship to Epi­taphs of Fate
4. Dana Ram­per­sad-For The Love of T&T-A Trib­ute To Trinidad and To­ba­go
5. Sav­it­ri Ho­lassie-Mas­quer­ade-The Hid­den Beau­ty
6. Lau­ra Ram­per­sad-Athena God­dess of War and Wis­dom
7. Nisa Nathu Hari-Khione: Win­ter's En­chantress
7. Krys­tal Thomas-Sa Sa Yea
9. Tekeyah Fletch­er Mar­shall-The Spir­it of Car­ni­val-Trib­ute to Roland St George 
10. Ruth Adams Mendez-The Emer­gency Of The Mar­aval Lily