Or­di­nar­i­ly in the mind­set of groups of peo­ple, beau­ty queen com­pe­ti­tions are just that: a show­ing of a pret­ty face and a sculp­tured body to au­di­ences of hun­dreds of mil­lions in the Miss World and Miss Uni­verse pageants.

But based on the re­port­ing of what our Miss World T&T 2025, An­na-Lise Nan­ton, has been say­ing about this coun­try in ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly far-off Telan­gana, In­dia, we need to pay greater at­ten­tion to the val­ue of con­nec­tions made through such shows, in the re­al­i­sa­tion that they are be­yond skin-deep beau­ty.

In In­dia, Ms Nan­ton makes an in­stant con­nec­tion with the warmth, tra­di­tion, and en­er­gy of the south­ern In­di­an state and finds it be­ing “rem­i­nis­cent of home.”

We learned too from the beau­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive how an an­cient coun­try and cul­ture, in an his­tor­i­cal sense, such as In­dia, has now be­come a mod­ern tech­no­log­i­cal me­trop­o­lis. She finds Telan­gana not de­stroyed by mod­erni­sa­tion but hav­ing re­tained “its art, mu­sic, dance, and lit­er­a­ture.”

It sure­ly is a les­son for T&T that while be­ing in the world of the 21st cen­tu­ry, our won­der­ful an­ces­tral, en­dear­ing habits must con­tin­ue to in­flu­ence our way for­ward as a na­tion which has arisen out of a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of cul­tures and tra­di­tions.

Our Miss World T&T has al­so been able to ob­serve what is hap­pen­ing in suc­cess­ful mod­ern na­tions, that be­ing the “em­pow­er­ing mod­el” of women. Nan­ton says this “res­onates with my work at The Shel­ter in Trinidad and To­ba­go, where I serve as the youngest board mem­ber, of­fer­ing sup­port, safe­ty, and new be­gin­nings for women in cri­sis.”

There is sure­ly res­o­nance there with T&T, which now has three women in the high­est po­lit­i­cal of­fices in the coun­try, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, a phe­nom­e­non we are be­gin­ning to ap­pre­ci­ate and to do so with a mea­sure of pride.

Nan­ton, through her ex­pe­ri­ence in the beau­ty pageant, high­light­ed T&T’s Project Lara— the Caribbean’s largest so­lar farm— and the pride ex­pressed in nam­ing it af­ter crick­et leg­end Bri­an Lara.

Such us­age of a hu­man re­source is a bring­ing home to those of us who may not nec­es­sar­i­ly as­so­ciate the great crick­eter with qual­i­ties out­side of the game, the in­valu­able hu­man achiev­er who is Lara epit­o­mised by his con­quer­ing spir­it.

The T&T beau­ty is al­so teach­ing a les­son re­gard­ing the val­ue of our cit­i­zens who have gone out in­to the world be­yond and won high recog­ni­tion and praise for their achieve­ments.

“Imag­ine my joy when I shared that I’ve met and per­son­al­ly known Bri­an Lara and Dwayne Bra­vo, not re­al­is­ing just how leg­endary they are here in In­dia,” Nan­ton says, not­ing that “these out­stand­ing sports­men are more than ath­letes. They’re lit­er­al­ly like gods to crick­et lovers across this coun­try.”

Yes, there have been a few at­tempts at mak­ing con­nec­tions be­tween our cul­tur­al hu­man re­sources to have them be a part of an out­ward thrust, but that has not been done in a sys­tem­at­ic and com­mit­ted man­ner. Frankly, it’s been more of a re­flex pub­lic re­la­tions stunt hav­ing them be mem­bers of a con­tin­gent go­ing abroad.

The times are pro­pi­tious for our he­roes to speak for us.