Commentary concerto in chapters

Chapter One – Allegro

There is so much to talk about this week, that I decided to present a few issues as separate micro “chapters.” It’s a liberty I claimed some years ago by describing the process as a series of “movements” (à la classical symphonic arrangements which typically require four discrete renditions).

But I have chosen to abandon such a rigid formulation and go for the flexibility of literature while retaining the relative orderliness classical music brings. So, this was my quick opening “allegro.”

Chapter Two - Budget Andante

This slower, slumber-inducing movement focuses on the annual budget presentation, side-talk, and “debate” which I followed from a safe distance this year. Full of hubris, privilege, and affected rage, it was difficult to extract from most of it any semblance of a distinction between separate nonsenses.

So, the prime minister - hopefully against the advice of the designated ministers purporting to embrace the marvels of an already ageing “digital revolution” – believes that “infrastructure” and “indiscipline” provide major barriers to the digitalising/virtualising of processes and public conduct, including the world of work.

For sure, he is not alone. Some captains of business and industry still apparently contemplate an elusive Millennium Bug and clearly embrace a notion of “the good old days” of office sweat shops with hapless minions at the other end of officious whips.

The storyteller would bring this chapter to a screeching stop with the summary statement: They spent a considerable amount of time saying absolutely nothing. At least not anything that will be remembered as compellingly as how hot the pepper was in the last doubles.

I would add: Read Terrence Farrell’s recent newspaper thesis on the perils of “gradualism” for one of the few sensible responses to this year’s slothful budget andante.

Chapter Three – CPL Minuet

This dance-inducing movement emerges with fluttering flags and jingoistic delight. No T&T Amazon Warriors but a promising T&T Patriots and, of course a TKR.

So, we went to the Oval in neutral colours to avoid the taunts and the absurdities. A South African bowled to a Pakistani and the catch was taken by a New Zealander and the crowd erupted with patriotic zeal!

Franchise banners and national flags wild in the wind, the way once displayed side by side in Europe, but this time minus the murderous results. Slaughter left to the field of play.

Put on repeat my 2018 melody: “If you use a national flag in the branding of any product, you can convert support into passion, affection into love, and a simple contest into a war.”

In Guyana, where one flag lay trampled some years ago, there flew in the Final the black, yellow, and green - more as political statement than cricketing wisdom. “Local content” now as forgotten as the Bangladeshi’s heroics mere days before.

How, I had asked, does Shakib prefer his pepperpot? Has Shai caught the minibus at Stabroek Market? And maybe Tahir prefers life in the marvelous Essequibo?

Enough, no more. ‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before!

Chapter Four – Genealogical Allegro

Long curious about numerous aspects of my mixed heritage, I have been engaging the activities of the T&T Genealogy Facebook Group in order to excavate specific clues about the story of my enslaved ancestors. Even in casual online exchanges, the richness of the discourse is abundant.

Being the product of Africa, India, China and Europe means there are numerous - most times previously unexplored - adventures to experience.

Last Sunday, group curator Ann Dardaine took more than one hundred of us through an audit of available resources to aid in researching our past. Excerpts are to be posted on the Group soon. Let me tell you, Dardaine’s presentation, as a researcher, provided valuable, authoritative guidance on adjoining the myriad chapters of our stories.

The Group is paired with like-minded amateur and professional practitioners in St Vincent and the Grenadines – where resides one arm of the expansive reach of the Neehall clan that first touched Caribbean soil in St Kitts in 1863 and emerged latterly as family matriarch in Curepe.

How does all this come in the final orchestral flourish? Nothing to quicken the heart more than the micro bits and pieces of our own stories. Some day I will tell you more about my Uncle Greg who journeyed to China to live and work in the very village my late grandfather left behind for his brave sea journey to our shores.

*Energetic cadenza and taper off as at the final flow at the end of a Port of Spain traffic jam or Caroni flood.