“THERE’s a heaviness in the people coming out to party,” conscious soca star, Maximus Dan, confessed to me in a brief conversation last week.

“The truth is the freedom that we had as a people is no longer there.

“I can see the people, literally walking on egg shells,” he added.

“It’s like they are partying but still conscious of the country; people’s vibes change, man,” he added.

“Imagine you have to pay all that money for a costume and you are not sure whether you are coming home in one piece,” Maximus observed.

Now, the superstar has been a fixture at all major fetes for the 2006 Carnival season, therefore this is a first hand report of a man who, although he performs with tremendous energy, takes downtime and reflects on just about everything that he observes.

We had this conversation just about one week before the bacchanal in the United National Congress (UNC) could no longer be contained and the sewage spilled out on the road for everybody to see their business.

And each morning for the past few days, when I picked up the newspaper, I shook my head in shame because we, as a people, are not giving ourselves a break.

Every year, besides 2006, you could have bet your Panorama tickets, your all inclusive fete outfits and your costume that a Carnival bacchanal will bust out, to give the people some kind of relief.

Two years ago, we got a really saucy version when Denise Belfon and Destra Garcia scrambled each other in Angostura’s carpark as the rivalry over the two biggest women in the business reached fever pitch on that night.

Tongues were wagging out of control; everybody had a good laugh at the hot blooded red women and added to the jump and wave and wining, it must have brought relief to a tremendous amount of people.

Nowadays, we cannot even get a break; the politicians are, sadly, strangling us with “dotishness”.

So, for the past few days, we have seen a more strident Basdeo Panday re-emerge from under the movement in the party that was growing in favour of Political Leader Winston Dookeran.

He’s being energised by Jack Warner and Ramesh Maharaj; what an alliance!

The Silver Fox has finally gained a little life because of the people who would like to ride him into power, again.

And he doesn’t mind that, as long as he knows that he will reach the finish line, as well; it does not matter in what condition he gets there.

Ramesh Maharaj and Jack Warner are both burning with ambition for high office here in TnT, but neither man, some may argue, has the trust of the people.

While we expect that Jack will move mountains to impress the people, there remains a cloud over his integrity which a silver or fox lining cannot even remedy.

And that is putting it nicely.

Ramesh, on the other hand, was sneaked into power by Panday back in 1995.

Even though he fought and won a safe seat, the old Bas had to wait for a while before he could impose Ramesh on the nation, when he appointed him as Attorney General.

And even though he did the right thing by removing himself from among the UNC which he likened to a bunch of thieves, Ramesh, in my opinion, was never able to gain people’s confidence.

His political platform never took off and he remains just like Karl Hudson Phillips. Not that people ‘fraid Karl; they ent trust him at all!

And we can say the same for Jack Warner who has probably sold himself to Bas as the man to take TnT by storm in the year leading up to the 2007 general election because of the success of the Soca Warriors.

And that’s the start of the bacchanal in the UNC.

Now that does not mean that the dissidents; Sadiq Baksh, Robin Montano and Ganga Singh are on the good side.

Bas after all, would remind anyone of them that just like Ramesh and Jack none of them can face the electorate and pull any votes.

The “principle” which they are arguing about has long gone down the drain.

Panday, even so, is thinking like a dinosaur, hoping like the supreme opportunist that he is, that the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) is ripe for the pickings and that the people will simply boot them out.

So this bacchanal in the UNC could simply be a smoke screen to give the PNM a false sense of comfort because if Ganga, Robin, Sadiq or Roy is removed from the party’s frontline, it would make no difference to the equation.

It certainly won’t change the price of cocoa.

Bas, in a last ditch effort, hopes to have the money of Jack with the “bad john” talent of “Ramesh” to get his way back into power.

So, we can expect that Ramesh will come on the platform -- for which Jack will provide the funds -- and threaten all kinds of legal action against PNM corruption.

Instead of moving forward, Panday will hope that he can lead the stupid people backwards to the year when he barely won an election on the issue of crime and corruption.

And Ramesh will become the new Abu Bakr of politics; sleeping with the wolves and gathering dirt to throw on whichever side he can, whenever it is convenient for him!

Bas wants to cast him in a role as the new (legal) terrorist aiming at the PNM.

So the PNM -- whom he courted to bring down UNC corruption -- had better take that, because it seems as if he’s the only weapon that Bas has.

Now we wait until the weekend to see if he will misfire!