Shas­tri Boodan

Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo, cul­tur­al af­fairs chair­man of the Hin­di Foun­da­tion of T&T has ex­pressed con­cern that the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch (CSM) com­pe­ti­tion con­tributes to the demise of In­di­an cul­ture in T&T.

Man­ga­roo said he has noth­ing against George Singh, pro­mot­er of the event, but is against the bank­rupt lyrics put for­ward by artistes who en­ter the com­pe­ti­tion.

He ex­pressed those views yes­ter­day dur­ing a func­tion at which Suri­namese singer Pun­dit Kries Ramkhele­wan hand­ed over a pair of Na­gara drums to the ISHA Or­gan­i­sa­tion in Freeport.

“I have fol­lowed the CSM from the be­gin­ning; there is a de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in the qual­i­ty of the per­for­mance; they have butchered the lyrics and it’s all about one spe­cial type of song,” he said.

“We have to come up with na­tion-build­ing songs, mean­ing­ful songs, songs that could lift your com­mu­ni­ty, lift the so­ci­ety, not this kind of rum and rum. I don’t like it. I might be crit­i­cised for it, but I don’t mind. A lot of us put a lot of work in­to the pro­mo­tion, sus­te­nance and de­vel­op­ment of In­di­an Cul­ture and that is not one of the av­enues I would want to sup­port.”

Man­ga­roo said artistes who par­tic­i­pate in the CSM have shown that they can come up with bet­ter songs out­side of the com­pe­ti­tion.

He de­clared that “butcher­ing lyrics” is not the way to go” and ap­pealed to chut­ney so­ca artistes to “come bet­ter than that, bring some­thing mean­ing­ful to the so­ci­ety.”

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Singh main­tained that East In­di­an cul­ture is “def­i­nite­ly not on the de­cline” in T&T.

“Both the Chut­ney So­ca Monarch and the Di­vali Na­gar, the two largest an­nu­al In­do events, are grow­ing ex­po­nen­tial­ly,” he said.

“In­ter­est­ing­ly, Mr Man­ga­roo is a vice pres­i­dent of the NCIC, the or­gan­i­sa­tion that pro­motes the Di­vali Na­gar.”

Singh added, “On an­oth­er note, we have been work­ing every year for the last 14 years meet­ing with artistes, do­ing work­shops, dis­cussing the top­ics and lyri­cal con­tent of chut­ney so­ca mu­sic. I want to say un­equiv­o­cal­ly that the lyri­cal con­tent of chut­ney so­ca mu­sic has im­proved dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

“The Chut­ney So­ca Monarch is ac­tu­al­ly on the rise and this year will see the CSM reach glob­al au­di­ences like nev­er be­fore. The CSM has been in­stru­men­tal in cre­at­ing an in­dus­try that nev­er ex­ist­ed be­fore and, to­day, af­fects the lives and liveli­hoods of In­do-Caribbean artistes glob­al­ly. The CSM is now the most im­por­tant In­do-Caribbean event in the world!

“Southex and USA-based In­ter­na­tion­al Film Group have signed a his­toric TV dis­tri­b­u­tion deal for CSM’s 30th An­niver­sary Show. The show will now be dis­trib­uted across mul­ti­ple plat­forms and lin­ear chan­nels around the globe.”