Shas­tri Boodan

A child’s voice raised in song that can make an old tra­di­tion seem new again. At 11, Aaniya Vic­to­ria Carl­ton has found her place in that tra­di­tion, car­ry­ing a lit­tle of her child­hood world in­to the larg­er world of mu­sic with a song ded­i­cat­ed to Moth­er Lak­sh­mi.

Her first orig­i­nal Di­vali song, Lak­sh­mi Ma­ta Aao Hamare Ghar, is more than an­oth­er en­try in the sea­son’s de­vo­tion­al of­fer­ings. It rep­re­sents the meet­ing of a young girl’s nat­ur­al af­fec­tion for mu­sic and a cul­ture whose songs, prayers and sto­ries have trav­elled across the ocean and gen­er­a­tions, sur­viv­ing in the mem­o­ries of fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties.

Aaniya is a Stan­dard Five stu­dent of Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School whose in­tro­duc­tion to mu­sic came al­most as nat­u­ral­ly as learn­ing to speak. Her moth­er, Ani­ta Singh, recog­nised the child’s en­thu­si­asm and en­rolled her at Vanes­sa Brig­gs Vo­cad­e­my when she was just four years old.

Un­der Brig­gs’ su­per­vi­sion, she be­gan de­vel­op­ing her voice, learn­ing the dis­ci­plines of singing var­i­ous gen­res in­clud­ing gospel, pop, reg­gae and Christ­mas-style mu­sic. Even­tu­al­ly, it was the de­vo­tion­al songs of Hin­duism that would draw her to­wards an­oth­er ex­pres­sion of mu­sic.

Aaniya has been one of the lead singers with the ISHA Kir­tan Aachaaryas at the ISHA Or­gan­i­sa­tion Ashram in Freeport for the past four years, be­com­ing part of a com­mu­ni­ty that has helped shape her mu­si­cal and spir­i­tu­al de­vel­op­ment.

Her first orig­i­nal record­ing be­gan with a video shared by her aunt, Sari­ka Ma­habir, show­ing Aaniya singing a de­vo­tion­al song to Lord Shi­va. Ma­habir sent the record­ing to singer-song­writer and pro­duc­er Dave Ra­moutar of Side One Stu­dio.

Some­thing in the young­ster’s voice, con­fi­dence and sin­cer­i­ty caught Ra­moutar’s at­ten­tion. He de­cid­ed to write and pro­duce an orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion for her, giv­ing birth to Lak­sh­mi Ma­ta Aao Hamare Ghar, writ­ten in Au­gust 2026. Ra­moutar, 58, of St Au­gus­tine, is a sound en­gi­neer, writer, pro­duc­er and lec­tur­er in Sound De­sign at the De­part­ment of Cre­ative Arts at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

The song, re­leased dur­ing Di­vali 2026, cel­e­brates Lak­sh­mi Ma­ta, the Hin­du god­dess of wealth, pros­per­i­ty and good for­tune. Its ac­com­pa­ny­ing mu­sic video was pro­duced by Sabi­ta Per­sad, with as­sis­tance from Pun­dit Kr­ishen Ramdeen and Ker­ry Gob­erd­han.

The un­der­tak­ing, known as Project Aaniya, brought to­geth­er peo­ple who want­ed to see the young singer’s tal­ent flour­ish.

Pun­dit Ramdeen has pro­vid­ed re­li­gious men­tor­ship and en­cour­age­ment, help­ing Aaniya de­vel­op be­yond the de­mands of per­for­mance. Her moth­er has en­sured that her ed­u­ca­tion re­mains equal­ly im­por­tant, while her ma­ter­nal grand­par­ents, Vin­dra and Dar­ryan Singh, and younger sis­ter, Adaleigh Carl­ton, re­main among her clos­est sup­port­ers.

Teach­ers and staff at her school al­so en­cour­aged her mu­si­cal in­ter­ests by recog­nis­ing that a child’s ed­u­ca­tion need not be con­fined to the lessons taught in­side a class­room. Her in­volve­ment with the school choir has pro­vid­ed an­oth­er av­enue for her de­vel­op­ment.

Aaniya is prepar­ing for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment and is ex­pect­ed to rep­re­sent her school at the 36th Bi­en­ni­al Mu­sic Fes­ti­val at Queen’s Hall, per­form­ing with the choir and in the so­lo cat­e­go­ry for her age group.

At home in Pokhor Road, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, she re­mains a school­girl with ex­am­i­na­tions ahead and a child­hood still un­fold­ing. Yet her am­bi­tions reach be­yond the fa­mil­iar sur­round­ings of school and fam­i­ly. She dreams of trav­el­ling the world, meet­ing peo­ple from dif­fer­ent cul­tures and shar­ing her voice with them.

Aaniya’s con­tri­bu­tion is still a small one, but it is a be­gin­ning. In invit­ing Lak­sh­mi Ma­ta in­to the home through song, she has found a way to join that con­tin­u­ing con­ver­sa­tion be­tween faith, fam­i­ly and cul­ture.