Car­ni­val 2026 is over. De­vout Catholics went to mass to have ash­es sym­bol­i­cal­ly placed on their fore­head yes­ter­day. Hin­dus made of­fer­ings to Lord Shi­va while Di­manche Gras un­fold­ed on stage. Ter­ri Lyons sang a prayer to heal and bless the na­tion to win the Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle and made an ap­peal to the cit­i­zen­ry to unite and re­deem them­selves. A lofty cry in a so­ci­ety prone to frac­ture and with pro­nounce­ments from po­lit­i­cal quar­ters, some­times strik­ing dis­cor­dant, po­lar­is­ing notes.

Ob­ser­vant Chris­tians will give up one thing at least, as an act of sac­ri­fice or ob­ser­vance for the next 40 days. To­day, prac­tic­ing Mus­lims be­gin Ra­madan fast­ing for 30 days. Most oth­ers will just go about their busi­ness. Life goes on.

We must be­gin to tru­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the kind of so­ci­ety that we are.

If any oth­er coun­try had this di­ver­si­ty of peo­ple and such free­dom to en­joy what­ev­er is your pref­er­ence, with­in the law, in such a rel­a­tive­ly small but ab­solute­ly beau­ti­ful place, they would plan and or­gan­ise prop­er­ly and bring a lot of tourists to make some mon­ey and en­hance T&T’s rep­u­ta­tion.

It is not just the cul­ture, the mu­sic, the free­ing up, the fun. It is al­so the boun­ti­ful as­sets be­yond sun, sand and sea.

A tourist, de­pend­ing on in­ter­est, could go from cul­tur­al im­mer­sion, to Car­ni­val ex­cess, to beau­ti­ful beach­es, calm na­ture re­treats, to a spir­i­tu­al ex­pe­ri­ence with a coun­try­side/ com­mu­ni­ty tour, and food is abun­dant and full of va­ri­ety wher­ev­er you go.

Ex­pe­ri­ences are abun­dant here. The line, the lime, the lan­guage (every­thing slight, roast pep­per, cuchela), the eat­ing with your hands, the stim­u­la­tion of your taste­buds and the as­sault on your si­nus­es, fol­lowed by a co­conut wa­ter or a red or ba­nana So­lo. Au­then­tic ex­pe­ri­ence hard to repli­cate else­where.

Go­ing to an all-in­clu­sive fete in Trinidad is dress­ing up for a pic­nic with mu­sic and ex­cite­ment. It is a food fair with flair. It is a drinker’s par­adise. So­cial re­la­tions and good­will are at a pre­mi­um. But a tourist new to Trinidad and To­ba­go might have to be guid­ed through the maze of plea­sures .And we need to take that in­to ac­count in our plan­ning.

But we have to take stock of some re­al­i­ties too. While Panora­ma has its charm and mag­net­ism and the fi­nals were well ex­e­cut­ed this year, with in­di­vid­ual band per­for­mances of high qual­i­ty, we can leave out some things. Do the lead-ins to a steel or­ches­tra play­ing in a mu­sic com­pe­ti­tion add any­thing to the per­for­mance or the ex­pe­ri­ence? Is it not self-in­dul­gent, in­su­lar and un­en­ter­tain­ing? Why not just let the band play and the drill mas­ter play him­self? What does one re­al­ly need to add to the mu­sic?

Chut­ney and chut­ney so­ca can be repet­i­tive and bor­ing and needs to up­grade. Some ex­per­i­men­ta­tion with crossovers are be­gin­ning to im­pact.

The Skin­ner Park Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta is pure pun­ish­ment. Oh God, man! And this year’s Di­manche Gras was painful. Ricky Jai got your at­ten­tion, Ter­ri Lyons brought the House down, Car­ol Ashe can sing, Helon Fran­cis served po­lit­i­cal pep­per, and the TTT au­dio si­lence led to an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal comess, but the show as a show was not ex­cit­ing. It was not great.

Our lyrics some­times lack in­tel­lec­tu­al depth and emo­tion­al in­ten­si­ty to reach mind and heart.

David Rud­der’s Ca­lyp­so Mu­sic, Haiti and Ganges and the Nile broke bar­ri­ers and read­i­ly crossed bound­aries. Ras Shorty I touched the soul with White Pow­der, Kevin Lyt­tle’s Turn Me On re­mains one of so­ca’s most pol­ished break­throughs with in­ter­na­tion­al ap­peal. Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Dif­fer­en­tol­ogy is su­perb for any au­di­ence, any­where, any time. Kes and Machel strive for mag­ic each year. Is heart, mind, spir­it and pelvis!

If we want Car­ni­val to be the great­est show on earth, we must cu­rate it, cause it to rise to world stan­dards and ap­peal, while re­tain­ing au­then­tic­i­ty. Au­then­tic­i­ty and in­su­lar­i­ty are not the same. Noth­ing wrong with po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary. We have a long, vi­tal tra­di­tion. And it re­al­ly can­not be mut­ed. But po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary is art. Spar­row’s

Solomon is art.

Sim­plis­tic politi­ci­sa­tion of every­thing can be our down­fall every­where. In one blow, it robs us of cre­ativ­i­ty, au­then­tic­i­ty, out­ward reach, and im­pairs judge­ment and elim­i­nates dis­cern­ment. And when that hap­pens, we stop grow­ing and the cul­ture de­gen­er­ates, even as we cel­e­brate medi­oc­rity as high mas and shout “We Cul­ture” at the top of our lungs.