BACK IN June 2021, Faris Al-Rawi made the declaration.

'Next Carnival is going to be the mother of all Carnivals,' he said. 'Good days are ahead of us, and I'm very hopeful about it.'

Mr Al-Rawi was at that stage this country's Attorney General. But he stepped out of his crease somewhat to lend support to the Government's vaccination campaign, holding up the prospect of a safe Carnival the way one might hold up a carrot to encourage people to get jabbed.

They didn't, many of them.

And as the dust settles on the first full Carnival since Mr Al-Rawi, and many others, spoke those or similar words, it is clear that the 'mother of all Carnivals' has turned out to be little more than a damp squib.

All those who had great expectations for Carnival 2023, including the former AG, cannot be blamed.

Carnival is part of the soul of TT. It is deeply rooted in our history and in our culture and the yearning for its resumption was powerful.

When there was no Carnival in 2021, that vacuum was arguably filled by an incredible outpouring of grief and outrage in the wake of the murder of 23-year-old Andrea Bharatt.

The gatherings and vigils then should have been taken as a sign not only of the frustration of a population fed up with violence against women, but also of the fact of the tremendous untapped energy of our population, an energy that many routinely dissipate in cathartic expressions of revelry come Carnival Monday and Tuesday.

The 'half Carnival' of 2022 satisfied no one: all eyes turned naturally to this year's return to the fullest expression of our national identity, even amid the 'new normal.'

Yet, the festival was too normal and absolutely nothing about it was truly new.

Many have taken consolation in the fact that this year's proceedings did manage to highlight new faces. Fresh blood triumphed by taking home many of the biggest prizes.

Others, like Legacy bandleader Mike 'Big Mike' Antoine, noted some of the age-old logistical problems of the festival had returned and returned with a vengeance.

Regional Carnivals seemed near the point of death, with grumbling about the lack of attention paid to San Fernando and Tobago.

Fake news circulated claiming one of this country's finest masmen had died, but many seized on this development as a satire about the state of mas itself.

Who could have foreseen that instead of 'the mother of all Carnivals,' we would have been brought to a stage where the very future of the festival is in doubt because of the appalling lack of vision evident this year?

We deserved much better than this.

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