Tanti at de Oval

Think Piece Of Tanti At The Oval

Paul Keen-Douglas a great self published author was born in Trinidad and Tobago but spent most of his early childhood days in Grenada. One of his great pieces” Tanti At De Oval” which was a free-verse narrative monolog. This monolog details the misadventures of one of the most remember folk characters Tanti Merele at a historic cricket match.

Tanti at De Oval is a famous poem/play which was written by the author Paul Keen Douglas. The poem which was based on a true historic cricket match played in the Caribbean where Trinidad and Tobago was verses the Combined Islands which resulted in a draw. The match was played for the prestigious 1974 -1975 shell series championship. Cricket this has been a sport with a rich sense of history in the Caribbean dating back to the 1800’s to this present time. The game of cricket was first introduced by the British Empire when the military came to the different colonies within the Caribbean (Mustafa 322). It is of my belief that gender has widely affected the discipline and development of the game at a slow rate. Women of the Caribbean after the post-emancipated period suffered the faith of a great increase of inequality. This was due to the many male laborers choosing to leave their homes in search of employment, meaning the women were left to run their homes and families (Blank, 2).

Even thou there were inequalities cricket sought to combine and create a relationship between the different classes and races of people, for example the black and poor men of all races together (Beckles, 117). Females were all rejected entry to sport spaces because cricket and sport were perceived to be masculine based actives which only men should participate (Razack,6). As the years go by after the introduction of cricket in the region women have been making great significant achievement in the sporting arena also others like politics I the Caribbean.( Razack,1)It is of my view and perspective of the game...