San Fernando mas kicks off

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

A heavy se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence marked the start of Car­ni­val Tues­day in San Fer­nan­do as Blue Dev­ils joined the first band on the road Fyr­na­tion, sig­nal­ing a de­ter­mined push to re­vive South mas.

The Blue Dev­ils, a tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ter added a dra­mat­ic flair to the launch of Fyr­na­tion Car­ni­val band’s pre­sen­ta­tion, “So­lara”, as mas­quer­aders moved off un­der the watch of a 60-mem­ber se­cu­ri­ty team.

Band leader Sasha Sinanan said safe­ty was the top pri­or­i­ty for the rel­a­tive­ly young band, now in its sec­ond year.

“We don’t like the rope de­sign. We don’t want to be like a hood,” Sinanan said. “Our se­cu­ri­ty, we are 60 strong in se­cu­ri­ty. We want to just make sure that our mas­quer­aders—the most im­por­tant thing in our place for now—is the se­cu­ri­ty. And that is why we have big num­bers in se­cu­ri­ty.”

The height­ened mea­sures come against the back­drop of con­cerns about de­clin­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val and the abrupt can­cel­la­tion of Mid­night Mas on Mon­day night fol­low­ing re­ports of a shoot­ing in the city. While some have sug­gest­ed sab­o­tage, Sinanan de­clined to spec­u­late.

“Af­ter a cer­tain point, I don’t know the re­al de­tails what re­al­ly caused that ear­ly end­ing. So, I re­al­ly can’t com­ment on that. But yes, we do need more sup­port in San Fer­nan­do for mas,” he said.

Fyr­na­tion, which pre­sent­ed un­der the Fire­works ban­ner last year, is po­si­tion­ing it­self as part of a broad­er ef­fort to rein­vent Car­ni­val in the south.

“We’re try­ing to get back the younger peo­ple in­to San Fer­nan­do,” Sinanan said. “What we’re re­al­ly sell­ing is the ex­pe­ri­ence. We want to bring that Port of Spain ex­pe­ri­ence to San Fer­nan­do.”

Al­though reg­is­tra­tion num­bers were ini­tial­ly slow, he said late sign-ups brought the band close to its tar­get.

“Peo­ple from San Fer­nan­do are last-minute peo­ple,” he said with a laugh. “We were able to achieve not our goal, but we are very, very close to our goal.”

His wife, In­dra Sinanan, said the band at­tract­ed a mix of re­turn­ing play­ers and first-time mas­quer­aders.

“We’ve def­i­nite­ly had a lot of new play­ers play­ing for the first time—not just new in San Fer­nan­do, but peo­ple who are first-time mas­quer­aders. We’re very ex­cit­ed about that,” she said. “If we could give them that ex­pe­ri­ence of feel­ing safe and hav­ing a fun time in South and get close to that qual­i­ty you get up North, then that would be a new gen­er­a­tion of mas­quer­aders in San Fer­nan­do.”

The cou­ple, who say they have been play­ing mas in San Fer­nan­do for more than 30 years, ac­knowl­edged that spec­ta­tor num­bers have dwin­dled over time. Still, they re­main op­ti­mistic that a fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed at­mos­phere and en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty can help re­verse the trend.

“We have a whole Car­ni­val fam­i­ly,” In­dra said. “You see every­body’s chil­dren grow up, and now they’re bring­ing grand­kids. That is a good as­pect.”

She added that Mon­day’s turnout ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions, with play­ers prais­ing the band’s wel­com­ing vibe and or­gan­i­sa­tion.

On the is­sue of judg­ing, Sinanan ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with what he de­scribed as a “friend­ly ri­val­ry with a tro­phy at the end,” ar­gu­ing that stan­dards should not be com­pro­mised.

“For me, that is un­ac­cept­able,” he said. “But some­times you have to work with what it is you have, low­er the stan­dard and bring it back up. This is where we are try­ing to bring back San Fer­nan­do.”