Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

The rhyth­mic pulse of the dho­lak and the bright, metal­lic ring of the dhan­tal filled the Cou­va South Au­di­to­ri­um re­cent­ly as In­di­an Clas­si­cal mu­sic and tra­di­tion­al chut­ney shared cen­tre stage in a seam­less cul­tur­al show­case led by Dubraj Per­sad.

Per­sad, a sea­soned per­former known for his com­mand of both gen­res and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, host­ed his an­nu­al pro­duc­tion, Dubraj and Friends, draw­ing a ca­pac­i­ty crowd that be­gan as­sem­bling as ear­ly as 1 pm. By show­time, the venue was filled to ca­pac­i­ty—an in­di­ca­tion, Per­sad not­ed, that the event may soon out­grow its cur­rent home.

“The sup­port has been over­whelm­ing,” he said, hint­ing that a larg­er venue may be nec­es­sary for next year’s edi­tion.

What dis­tin­guished the event was its de­lib­er­ate struc­ture. The ear­ly start catered to en­thu­si­asts of In­di­an Clas­si­cal mu­sic, al­low­ing them to savour in­tri­cate melodies and de­vo­tion­al tones be­fore the high-en­er­gy rhythms of chut­ney took over lat­er in the pro­gramme. Pa­trons praised the for­mat as a “per­fect blend” that ho­n­oured both tra­di­tions with­out com­pro­mise.

Cen­tral to the show’s au­then­tic­i­ty was the use of tra­di­tion­al in­stru­ments—the har­mo­ni­um, dho­lak and dhan­tal—each deeply root­ed in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty, trac­ing back to the pe­ri­od of in­den­ture­ship. Their pres­ence lent a rich, or­gan­ic tex­ture to the per­for­mances, ground­ing the evening in her­itage while en­er­gis­ing a con­tem­po­rary au­di­ence.

The vo­cal line-up read like a who’s who of the genre. Vet­er­an singer Man­mo­han Gosyne opened with con­fi­dence and poise, fol­lowed by 81-year-old James Ram­dass of Ca­roni, whose six decades in mu­sic were ev­i­dent in his com­mand­ing de­liv­ery and en­dur­ing stage pres­ence.

Mooni­lal Gild­harie, an­oth­er stal­wart of In­di­an Clas­si­cal singing, had pa­trons on their feet, his per­for­mance blur­ring the line be­tween rev­er­ence and cel­e­bra­tion.

In­ter­na­tion­al per­form­ers added fur­ther di­men­sion to the show­case. Artistes such as Ashok Yankaram (Cana­da), Rudy Ram­dass (Penn­syl­va­nia) and In­darnil Su­ru­jdeo (Cana­da) brought a di­as­poric flavour, un­der­scor­ing the glob­al reach of the mu­sic while main­tain­ing its lo­cal soul.

Among the stand­out per­form­ers was Cyn­tra Sookoo of Bar­rack­pore. Known for her emo­tive voice and grace­ful stage pres­ence, she de­liv­ered a per­for­mance that res­onat­ed deeply with the au­di­ence, re­in­forc­ing her rep­u­ta­tion as a reg­u­lar fea­ture on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al cir­cuit.

Dubraj and Friends did more than en­ter­tain—it reaf­firmed the en­dur­ing ap­peal of In­di­an Clas­si­cal and chut­ney mu­sic, and the pow­er of thought­ful cu­ra­tion in bring­ing gen­er­a­tions to­geth­er through sound.