Dear Editor,

I have returned home like many Guyanese to get into the CARIFESTA spirit. I managed to get two tickets for the opening ceremony for myself and my wife with great difficulty as our hotel did not have any as I had anticipated.  Well, I should have saved myself the trouble!

The rain was just a prelude to the lacklustre programme that followed. I waited impatiently for the parade to begin hoping to see a well choreographed entry of the Guyanese contingent. When I saw a sea of beautiful ladies in pink and white outfits following a tassa group behind the Guyana flag, I thought they heralded good things.

I was sadly disappointed as the rest of the contingent emerged in drab black looking like a country in mourning.

Those beautiful ladies in pink captivated my heart and most of the people sitting around us as they looked the most professional in the entire programme. I was later made to understand that they were from the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha.

The other items that were commendable were some men in gold, the melodious choir, the Yoruba singers and the maticore ladies.

I searched the papers the next day looking for glimpses of any of the performers I mentioned but it seemed that they were pushed on the back burner.

It is a crying shame as if it were not for those performers Guyana would have looked as if it did not have any standard at all. My wife commented to me that none of the Indian performers were featured in the papers.  Well,  let us not go there.

Congratulations you stunning ladies in the pink, you made a lasting impression on my wife and I and thousands sitting in our stand!

Hopefully the rest of our two weeks is better.

Yours faithfully,
Dasrath Maraj Singh

Editor’s note:  Indo-Guyanese performers were featured in the Stabroek News.