(Trinidad Express) Chutney singer Dandayea Narine, popularly known for her hit “Picker Chooka Me”, died on Thursday.
She was 85.
Narine’s grandson, Richard Maharaj, shared with the Express yesterday that the chutney singer passed away after a period of illness, at his home in Barrackpore, where she had been living for the past three years.
Her funeral was held at the Shore of Peace Cremation Site, Mosquito Creek, on Saturday.
Narine was born in Tarouba to Bachan and Rookmin Jagoo in 1937. After marriage, she moved to Marabella, where she raised her family.
In the early 2000s, she gained popularity for her original songs “Picker Chooka Me” and “Baigan Wale”, but her career had begun long before.
Forty-two-year-old Maharaj said, “My grandmother would have been 86 on the third of December. From what we know from the stories she told us, she grew up around her grandparents. Her grandfather was a sadhu (one who keenly follows a path of spiritual discipline) who read the Ramayan, and her grandmother was a midwife. My grandmother followed these traditions and started singing as a young girl. When she was older, she started going to spread pal events, where they would spread a sheet, sit, and sing. She would perform at barahe (occasion that marks the twelfth day after a baby’s birth), farewell, and weddings.”
Maharaj said her interest was also in Hindi, of which she was fluent. He said that while she attended Marabella North Primary School, she would teach Hindi classes with her grandfather.
In the mid-90s, Narine would go on to perform in Mastana Bahar, where she won the Peoples’ Choice Award. She finished as the first runner-up in the 2001 Chutney Soca Monarch,where she gained the title of the Chutney Soca Monarch Queen for her song, “Picker Chooka Me”.
Narine would return to the Chutney Soca Monarch stage in 2019, when she collaborated with local performer, ClimaxXx, to produce a remake of her hit “Baigan Wale”. At that time, she was already in her 80s, and made a guest appearance during the performance.
Her son, Lalman Maharaj, would follow in her footsteps and enter into the Chutney circuit, with his release of the hit song “The Cat Lick The Butter”. Before his untimely passing in 2013 at 55 years old, he would dedicate the song “Oh Dandayea” to his mother.
In a social media post, Vinay Harrichan, founder of The Cutlass Magazine, shared his tribute to the late Chutney singer: “Having competed in traditional chutney and chutney soca contests, Dandayea was known for her command of East Indian folk compositions. In addition to her deep voice, her lively stage presence and ‘de shake’ dance were beloved. Dandayea, like Indian women of her time, adeptly mixed coded but sensual lyrics with suggestive moves…In recent interviews, Narine made a plea for the preservation of traditional chutney music. Aji (paternal grandmother) was among the generation who carried invaluable cultural knowledge with such ease.”
