By Johnny Coomansingh
A few nights ago, I attended a concert and heard someone state in a skit: “Doh parang the wrong house!” This part of Trini talk is now a household line. I guess every Trini knows both the denotative and connotative meanings of the maxim. Having mentioned the word parang in the aphorism, it is important to understand the nature about this parang activity in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). Every twenty-fifth day of September, the parang season swings into action in (T&T) to herald the Christmas season.
Although it is, at the basic level, Roman Catholic in nature, regardless of creed or class, parang music is part and parcel of the culture of most of the people living in T&T. The usual nature of parang (parranda) is an activity staged by a band of singers and instrumentalists (paranderos) that go from house to house paranging. At least, that was the style during my boyhood days. In that era, there wasn’t this horrible and trying upsurge of crime in (T&T). Nevertheless, paranging the wrong house is laden with definitions and descriptors.
An article about parang in Caribbean News Global (CNG) (January 02, 2024) gives a little insight into what parang is:
“Sometimes many paranderos go paranging with just a cuatro (the four-stringed Venezuelan national instrument), a pair of maracas (chacs-chacs), two tock-tocks, a box bass, and, as I have seen in the village of Tamana, even a dholak. This type of parang liming (hanging out) occurs in several recognised towns and villages in Trinidad, including Arima, Lopinot, Palo Seco, Rio Claro, San Raphael, Santa Cruz, Sangre Grande, Siparia, and Tamana.”
In September 2009, calypsonian Kenson Neptune (Sobriquet Ninja) sang the soca-parang song titled: ‘Wrong House.’ His song gave a humorous depiction about paranderos who went to visit and parang their friend Sotoro. They arrived at a house, but unfortunately, it was not Sotoro’s house and so the talk began: “We parang the wrong house.” Here’s part of Ninja’s lyrics:
Sotoro and he famaly
Used to live right next door to me
Then one day he moved away
Went and lived in Claxton Bay
We always used tuh parang
We always having fun
Ah ring-down, ring-down parang
We decide tuh give him one
But Sotoro start tuh laff at we
When we told him the story.
We parang the wrong house (x5)
Dat is not somebody peeping dey?
Buh dais not Sotoro
Look di man going and leggo the dog yes…
Look nah, it look like ah pit bull.
We parang the wrong house.
I will digress a bit to relate a little of my boyhood parang experiences while I lived at Adventist Street in Sangre Grande, Trinidad, in a house I labelled as ‘The Little Pink House.’ The best part of The Little Pink House in that blessed corner was Christmastime. It was as though a special light shone on that house where a single mom and her nine children dwelt.
Long gone are the days when we used to find fun in leepaying (plastering in Hindi) the house. The house was made of tapia (adobe), and every year we would mix cow’s dung (gobar), tapia grass and white clay to patch the holes in the house just before Christmas. When the plasterwork dried, we would mix whitewash and red ochre to get the right tone of pink for The Little Pink House.
Although we had no idea where Christmas presents and food were coming from, everything was done to welcome Christmas. Good people are everywhere; Christmas brings them out of the woodwork. Without fail, the toys and the food came from somewhere…only God knows. I could still remember the smell of hot home-made bread, coconut sweetbread and black fruitcake in the house on Christmas morning; and yes, the bright red sorrel drink brewed from the flowers of the sorrel plant (Hibiscus sabdariffa). Memories, memories, memories…and then the parang!
The wonder of Christmas was told in the parang. How lovely it was to get out of bed at two o’clock in the morning to welcome a group of paranderos singing a sweet Spanish Serenal outside the door. Happiness and joy were the language the music spoke. It was all about the annunciation of Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary and the miracle of salvation.
Sometimes the singers were old men with missing teeth but the melody sounded even sweeter with the accompaniment from a variety of instruments. Oh yes, the coffee pot would be on the fire and sancoche (soup with ground provisions and salted meat) and sweetbread would be served; we shared whatever we had with the paranderos.
Our house always received a special blessing at Christmas. We had so little, yet we gave so much…the love, the cheer, the joy that we experienced because we were contented with what we had. It did not matter if we hung plastic ‘curtains,’ it did not matter if we did not have new clothes, it did not matter if people poked fun at us. Sometimes I wish for some of those moments we shared in that house…so distant now.
Nowadays, the trend about paranderos just arriving at your doorstep singing a ‘Serenal’ in the wee hours of the morning has been somewhat stymied. Today in T&T, people who want a parang group to visit their home must book an appointment with the group of their choice. Many may voluntarily come dressed as paranderos but may come with ulterior motives. A word to the wise is sufficient. Bob Dylan said that the times they are changing. Long ago we did not really look at the ‘case histories’ of the paranderos. My family wasn’t that particular or nosy; we welcomed one and all and shared the little we had with the paranderos.
In terms of crime, T&T has reached a watershed moment. Somewhere, somehow, the crime situation in this country has gotten out of hand; many are the criminals who are paranging the wrong house(s). Although there is reduction in the number of murders this year, home invasions and other forms of criminality continue. Cars are still being broken into and stolen, people are still being robbed in parking lots, and valuables are still being snatched from passersby.
‘Doh parang the wrong house’ maintains that there are times when people in their daily lives parang the wrong house. This is not about paranging at Christmas time. A person could parang the wrong house at any time of the year, but now with the recent passage of the Home Invasion Bill in parliament, culprits will have to think twice before venturing to parang the wrong house.
In essence, The Home Invasion (Self-Defence and Defence of Property) Bill, 2025 states:
“An Act to establish the offence of home invasion and, in that context, to provide that a person has no duty to retreat when acting in self–defense or defense of his property; to provide that a person may use defensive force, including deadly force, to protect himself, his property or another person in his dwelling house; and to provide for related matters.”
Apparently, there were times in the history of T&T where the perpetrators were given more rights than the victims of a home invasion. This new bill certainly warns that if a criminal gets killed or maimed in a home invasion that he or she paranged the wrong house. The homeowner has the power to stand his or her ground and has nothing to fear in defense of life and property. It is abundantly clear that ‘crises require crisis solutions,’ and of course, ‘If you want to get rid of the cobwebs, you must kill the damn spider.’ In the Holy Bible (KJV), the last part of 1 Samuel 15:22 states: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”
Actually, paranging the wrong house could be quite comical for many paranderos. Nevertheless, there are cases where people may find themselves in deep trouble when they parang the wrong house.
Such instances include among others: bullying students in school, fighting in school, cheating on examinations, bribing public officers, driving a vehicle without a driver’s permit and/or insurance, parking in the wrong place, grand theft auto, home invasions (breaking and entering), stealing people’s property, praedial larceny, verbal and physical abuse of spouses and children, using expletives (curse words) in public places, shoplifting, littering, resisting arrest, road rage, breaking the speed limit, breaking traffic lights, using illicit drugs, drinking alcohol and driving a motor vehicle, carrying illegal firearms and other weapons, kidnapping and demanding a ransom, extortion, perjury, all varieties of bobol (white collar crime), and dangerous threats against people on social media.
Certain people have been arrested and jailed in T&T for making threats and/or inciting violence against government personnel. Such people definitely paranged the wrong house. They were sentenced and sent to the ‘big house.’ Here in T&T, it has been said: “Doh trouble trouble, unless trouble eh trouble yuh.” In other words, “Doh parang the wrong house.”
