First Couple ushers in Holi Season with Chowtal Samelan –at State House.

Shri Devi Granger is gonna definitely have to do some chowtalling at Congress Place now

Holi kare Ramotar n Granga
Holi kare Ramotara

Sing everbady

Can't sing too loud before Caribj and company call the Police and make a noise complaint about mosquito music disturbing the peace and tranquility of his stereo blasting proper decent West Indian tunes....like the soulful and philosophical melody "Nani Wine"

Uncle Sammy singing towards retirement.

Chowtal sounds like somebody took a sledgehammer to the instruments and the audience is shouting at them to stop.

I'm not really a fan of chowtallin.

I doan know if they chowtal anymore in India. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. Many of our Indian practices are forever frozen relics of the 19th century. India has changed much and altered much of their Brahmanic and Vedic practices since the 19th century. We're actually historical anomalies.

Nothing is wrong with that.  

Problem is you can't attach to the religious things for political convenience,

and your govt is the most corrupt ever.

Every new day brings the revelation of new wrong doing for the PPP.  That's why they going down.

Our culture and language are very important to our heritage and well being. The British tried to take away both.

Singing 'Phagwa songs' at State house reminds me of Albion, under the British rule of Guiana.

I exchanged postage stamps with the personnel manager's son who was ten, when I was 16. I had to get a pass from the personnel office to visit him in the manager's compound and I had to walk straight  to his house.

[After losing contact with him for over 40 years, we made contact again in Southern London.]

Sometimes his mother would say, could I wait for him  while he go with his  sister swimming in the all white pool. I could not get near the pool, or even touch the water.

This inequality bothered me a lot, because we lived with poor sanitation, no electricity and had to carry water long distances. Plus we had to walk to the mission school, past the compound every day.

Five years ago while we were in Guyana on projects, I was invited to accompany some US visitors to the pool.

It was an emotional feeling beyond words to explain my entering the pool for the first time and seeing other blacks using it. I stood in the corner and reminisce with deep emotions.

I also  noticed in the compound the Jhandi flags on trees near some houses.

In 1988, I attended the Indo Caribbean conference at York university and found out that the indenture labourers had to do their puja at night, when they will not be caught, because the British did not understand their religion.

But one day, after a white boy was killed by a bomb thrown in a school bus and the water pump behind our house was bombed, including some protestors shot by British soldiers, the little boy mother suggested that  I take him to my all Indian home and community.

I did take him home on my bicycle, while people stared at the unusual sight.

Among all the violence, as Guiana was trying to separate from Britain, I am yet to understand the trust placed on me as a teenager, that I would return  the lady's son safely.         

Final time for DONALD, let him enjoy.