Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Mere months af­ter be­ing ho­n­oured by the French Gov­ern­ment, Ca­lyp­so Rose, the undis­put­ed Ca­lyp­so Queen of the world, was be­stowed with an­oth­er ac­co­lade for her con­tri­bu­tion to lo­cal cul­ture. Yes­ter­day the To­ba­go-born ca­lyp­soian was ho­n­oured by the group Trinida­di­ans & To­bag­o­ni­ans Abroad, which is based in New York. Mc Cartha Lewis, whose so­bri­quet Ca­lyp­so Rose "the moth­er of all flow­ers," has been reign­ing as the Queen of Ca­lyp­so for the past 40 years and the Lead­er­ship Com­mit­tee of Trinida­di­ans & To­bag­o­ni­ans Abroad-New York, se­lect­ed her to be ho­n­oured at their first T&T In­de­pen­dence day cel­e­bra­tion.

Head of the group, Anoop Dhan­pat, through a press re­lease, said Ca­lyp­so Rose, 70, was se­lect­ed for her "ded­i­ca­tion to mu­sic." She now re­sides in New York. In Ju­ly the French Gov­ern­ment ho­n­oured Ca­lyp­so Rose for her con­tri­bu­tion to Ca­lyp­so. The event, which was held at Club To­ba­go, was at­tend­ed by Dr Harold Robert­son the T&T

Con­sul Gen­er­al. Pun­dit Dr Mahin Go­sine, orig­i­nal­ly of Pe­nal, and pro­fes­sor at Suf­folk Uni­ver­si­ty, Long Is­land was al­so ho­n­oured by the group for his "ded­i­cat­ed con­tri­bu­tion in the field of Ed­u­ca­tion."

He is as­so­ci­at­ed with the Rad­ha Kr­ish­na Mandir and the au­thor of over 20 books. Nurse Chan Jamoona, founder of the Hin­du Se­nior Cen­terin Queens, NY, was ho­n­oured for her hu­man­i­tar­i­an ser­vices. The for­mer Debe res­i­dent, Dhan­pat stat­ed, "has worked her way up from a qual­i­fied nurse to a di­rec­tor of a promi­nent hos­pi­tal in New York. The fourth per­son ho­n­oured by the group was Nir­mal Lorick for his con­tri­bu­tion to sports. Lorick, who is orig­i­nal­ly from Preysal, has cap­tained the USA Crick­et Team on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions. The group was found­ed to bring T&T im­mi­grants liv­ing in NY to­geth­er to give back to their home­land.