Tanti Mearle

In September 1942, Paul Keens-Douglas was born in San Juan, Trinidad. Although a Trinidadian by birth, his early childhood was in Grenada where he attended Presentation Boy College. He obtained an Honours Degree in Sociology as well as Diplomas in Radio and Television Production and Broadcasting and doing post graduate work in Mona, Jamaica. In 1974 he began writing and performing his own work and for the past twenty years he has been one of the top promoters in oral traditions in multiple environments, the most popular being his Carnival Tent Talk. As a self-published author he remarkably accomplished a lot: seven volumes of wok, twelve albums and three videos which with its wide appeal, addresses all classes and age groups. This paper seeks to examine Paul Keens Douglas’s audio ‘Tanti at the Oval’. The audio describes the author’s aunt upon her attendance to her first cricket match in the Queen’s Park Oval between Trinidad and the Combined Islands.

Tanti Merle serves as a person with great affectations who cannot uphold these appearances during times of anxiety. In the story she is taken to an important cricket match, arriving with a pink parasol and a huge basket of foodstuff. She eventually starts cussing out the umpire which then leads to a pitch invasion when her team was said to have won. Tanti Merle captures the essence of bacchanal specifically because of her pretentiousness to something quite dissimilar. Her desire to emulate a lifestyle and set of standards which can, for her, only be a smokescreen which will collapse at any second to disclose the true nature of her honest disorder. Some aspects of our Caribbean daily life highlighted in Tanti at de Oval are; the significance of cricket, the use of our dialectal language and the companionship and competitiveness nurtured by local sports.

Cricket is a thrill in both playing and watching the game. Its importance is no less than any sporting event. This wonderful game inspires team spirit, raises...