RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

There were tears of joy at the Par­vati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege yes­ter­day, af­ter Ka­ri­na Ma­haraj copped the school’s first-ever na­tion­al schol­ar­ship in the field of Per­form­ing and Cre­ative Arts.

Hug­ging her art teacher Seema Pus­tam, Ma­haraj broke down in tears as she vis­it­ed the school at SS Erin Road, Debe, yes­ter­day morn­ing. She al­so thanked Pus­tam for show­ing faith in her.

“It was be­cause you be­lieved in me. A lit­tle faith went a long way,” Ma­haraj said in tears, as Pus­tam al­so wiped away tears of her own.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a spe­cial as­sem­bly to mark her achieve­ment, Ma­haraj re­vealed how she fell ill dur­ing her stud­ies and had to force her­self to take a break. 

“I got sick, I overex­ert­ed my­self and I got ill and had to force my­self to take a break. I re­mem­ber the tears, go­ing to sleep very late and then wak­ing up ear­ly to go to school and run­ning on on­ly a cou­ple hours of sleep,” she re­called.

Pus­tam urged her fam­i­ly to con­tin­ue show­er­ing her with love and care.

Say­ing all stu­dents had to go through the “pres­sure of study­ing,” Ma­haraj had some ad­vice to give her peers.

“Don’t give up. You can do it. Take breaks in be­tween and find your­self a hob­by,” she said.

On days when the work­load was over­whelm­ing, Ka­ri­na said she used to go out­side and play with her dog.

The bud­ding at­tor­ney said she opt­ed to do art be­cause it was re­lax­ing.

Now that she is study­ing to be­come a lawyer, Ma­haraj said she hoped to use her tal­ents to help peo­ple.

Her par­ents Mintree and Ra­jin­dranath Ma­haraj, who own a tent rental com­pa­ny, said they were to­tal­ly sur­prised by their daugh­ter’s achieve­ment, al­though they knew she was a dili­gent and hard work­er.

“I just fin­ished work and came home yes­ter­day when we heard she won the schol­ar­ship. I was sur­prised and joy­ful,” Ra­jin­dranath re­called.

He de­scribed his daugh­ter as very stu­dious and hard­work­ing.

“My wife and I work hard in our busi­ness to send our chil­dren to school, so we are very proud of her,” he said.

Her moth­er Mintree al­so said she was sur­prised that Ka­ri­na had won the school’s first schol­ar­ship.

But for the school’s prin­ci­pal, Dr Shar­da Ma­haraj-Ram­jat­tan, Ka­ri­na’s suc­cess was not un­ex­pect­ed.

Be­fore 2019, Dr Ma­haraj-Ram­jat­tan said the school could not get schol­ar­ships, as it was un­able to of­fer a wide range of sub­jects be­cause of a lack of fa­cil­i­ties. 

But ever since the school start­ed to re­tain its own stu­dents for CAPE Stud­ies, Dr Ma­haraj-Ram­jat­tan said she no­ticed the hard work that Ma­haraj was putting in.

“She was a de­ter­mined and per­sis­tent stu­dent. We are so proud of her, very dis­ci­plined, very in­tel­li­gent, re­source­ful and knowl­edge­able,” Dr Ma­haraj-Ram­jat­tan said.

She not­ed that al­though they had con­straints with space, her 36 mem­bers of staff have been ris­ing above their chal­lenges.

“They have been giv­ing their best to their stu­dents. They take out their own per­son­al re­sources to help stu­dents. Ka­ri­na is our first schol­ar­ship win­ner but we have had many oth­er stu­dents who have all grade ones who have done very well,” she added.

Ma­haraj went to din­ner with her fam­i­ly to cel­e­brate her suc­cess yes­ter­day.