Sha­had Ali

Se­nior Press Pass Cor­re­spon­dent

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies

If you have heard the name Nevash Ram­baran be­fore, you may know that he is one of the top emerg­ing male mod­els in Trinidad and To­ba­go. While Ram­baran would not ad­mit to this ti­tle, over the past two years he has worked at var­i­ous events and cre­at­ing an ex­pan­sive port­fo­lio that many young, male mod­els dream to have. At age of 23, Ram­baran car­ries a body that some would de­scribe as that of a Greek god, and an in­tro­vert­ed per­son­al­i­ty that on one would nev­er ex­pect!

This in­ter­view was one gieMAGAZINE has been mean­ing to do for a very long time, hav­ing heard Ram­baran's name pop­ping up in many con­ver­sa­tions. The con­ver­sa­tions ranged from his un­be­liev­able good looks to how so­cial­ly con­nect­ed his life re­al­ly is. How­ev­er, af­ter just a few ques­tions the stereo­typ­i­cal im­age of a buff male mod­el slow­ly dis­solved.

Ram­baran is a past stu­dent of St. George's Col­lege where he won an ad­di­tion­al schol­ar­ship in the field of busi­ness. At the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies he suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed his de­gree in Man­age­ment and Fi­nance. He is cur­rent­ly em­ployed as a Pub­lic Man­age­ment Con­sul­tant and is read­ing for his MBA in Gen­er­al Man­age­ment spe­cial­is­ing in Mar­ket­ing.

When he isn't beat­ing the books, the mod­el al­so gives per­son­alised fit­ness train­ing for those who re­quire his ser­vices. Yes, my fel­low gieMAGAZINE read­er, Nevash Ram­baran is both brain and brawn. With Ram­baran's per­son­al mot­to be­ing 'Work hard and play hard­er', the young­ster has mod­elled for Tribe, Spice, Yu­ma, Is­land Peo­ple and many oth­er Car­ni­val bands this year.

He has al­so worked with many pop­u­lar pho­tog­ra­phers, in­clud­ing Calvin French. When posed with the ques­tion – 'Which of the bands ap­peared to of­fer a pro­fes­sion­al prod­uct?' the an­swer was in­stan­ta­neous. "Tribe is the best!" he ex­claimed. He con­tin­ued that the band of­fers every­thing a per­son would pay for, and there is vir­tu­al­ly no dis­ap­point­ment when at­tend­ing a Tribe brand­ed event or when play­ing Mas with Tribe.

De­scrib­ing him­self as sim­ple and hum­ble, Ram­baran nev­er re­al­ly saw him­self in the mod­el­ling in­dus­try. Af­ter leav­ing the sport of crick­et at age of 18, he de­cid­ed to keep fit by work­ing out and chang­ing his di­et. "I start­ed eat­ing a lot more pro­vi­sions and lean meat," he shared.

Af­ter be­ing tagged in many bare­back pho­tos on face­book, a lot of lo­cal pho­tog­ra­phers and agen­cies be­gan notic­ing him and mes­saged him to at­tend pho­to shoots. It was nev­er a main­stream path­way for him, but ad­mits that the ex­tra cash came in very handy.

Over­all, Ram­baran as­pires to delve in the world of Mar­ket­ing and Sales. He loves meet­ing new peo­ple and it's a field that he would en­joy. Speak­ing of meet­ing new peo­ple, Ram­baran has a very ac­tive nightlife, fre­quent­ing 51 de­grees night­club, Zen and oth­er lim­ing hotspots over the week­ends.

While he ad­mits that he does "par­ty a lot", he ex­plained that his work week is quite de­mand­ing and his week­ends are sole­ly left to en­joy him­self. "Work hard and play hard­er!" is his mot­to af­ter all!

Ap­pear­ing in sev­er­al en­ter­tain­ment mag­a­zines and even our dai­ly news­pa­pers one must think that Ram­baran gath­ers a lot of fe­male at­ten­tion. He dis­closed to gieMAGAZINE that from time to time he does get that type of at­ten­tion, but it is not as fre­quent as most might think.

"I still see my­self as the skin­ny and nerdy 120-pound boy back at George's," he stat­ed. This mod­el cer­tain­ly does not see him­self any dif­fer­ent­ly from who he was back then.

"You are small­er than the world," is what Ram­baran has learnt from the man he gets his spir­i­tu­al in­spi­ra­tion from - Ma­hat­ma Ghan­di - as well as from many spir­i­tu­al books he has read over the years. It was very shock­ing to meet Ram­baran as his in­tro­vert­ed na­ture was over the scale.

While the cov­er of to­day's mag­a­zine may not seem so, you bet­ter be­lieve it! The hum­ble na­ture of the guy who seems to have it all is ap­par­ent the minute you meet him.

As much as mod­el­ling is not a se­ri­ous ca­reer path for him, Ram­baran re­vealed that he would say yes to an in­ter­na­tion­al mod­el­ling con­tract; how­ev­er he does not ex­pect that of­fer any­time soon. For young men who would like to get in­volved in the field, he en­cour­ages all. He warns though, that male mod­el­ling in T&T needs some growth, with the ma­jor­i­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ties be­ing around the launch­ing of Car­ni­val bands.

So whether Ram­baran de­cides to strut his stuff on the stage a bit longer, or delve in­to his ca­reer path in Mar­ket­ing, it is a guar­an­tee that while work­ing hard and play­ing hard­er, Nevash Ram­baran is des­tined for suc­cess!