When the win­ner of Mas­tana Ba­har was an­nounced last year, An­je­ly Ra­jku­mar could hard­ly be­lieve it was her name they called. It capped over a decade of hard work in the realm of Hin­dus­tani clas­si­cal mu­sic.

In our last ar­ti­cle, we fo­cused on breast aware­ness for our teenagers. In this ar­ti­cle, we give at­ten­tion to the chil­dren of our breast can­cer sur­vivors. This no doubt is not a com­mon area of dis­cus­sion, though it is im­por­tant. Of note, many of our young boys and girls have many con­cerns and of­ten live in house­holds that are af­flict­ed by this dread­ed dis­ease.

Mo­ments be­fore Anaya Gokool steps on stage, still be­hind the cur­tains, she thinks about her grand­moth­er. She even looks up to the heav­ens some­times, whis­per­ing, “This is for you.”

To­day, homes across T&T will soon glow with the warm flick­er of hun­dreds of tiny clay lamps—deyas—sym­bol­is­ing the tri­umph of light over dark­ness. But be­hind each flame lies the artistry and de­vo­tion of crafts­men like Makh Tick­lal, a tra­di­tion­al deya mak­er from Ch­agua­nas whose hands have shaped both clay and cul­ture for gen­er­a­tions.

For many women, menopause un­folds grad­u­al­ly over sev­er­al years. But for oth­ers, it can ar­rive overnight-trig­gered by surg­eries such as a hys­terec­to­my (re­moval of the uterus) or oophorec­to­my (re­moval of the ovaries). When this hap­pens, the hor­mon­al shift is im­me­di­ate, of­ten lead­ing to what’s called sur­gi­cal or in­duced menopause.

Phys­i­cal, men­tal and emo­tion­al sup­port dur­ing and af­ter breast can­cer treat­ment is one of the cru­cial fac­tors in the re­cov­ery process, as it helps the pa­tient man­age the emo­tion­al tur­moil that comes with a can­cer di­ag­no­sis and makes adapt­ing to their new ‘nor­mal’ a bit eas­i­er.

“Love? Love? Love is not safe, my la­dy silk, love is dan­ger­ous. It is de­ceit­ful­ly sweet like wine from a fresh palm tree at dawn. Love is fine for singing about, and love songs are good to lis­ten to, some­times even to dance to. But when we need to count on hu­man strength, and when we have to count pen­nies for food for our stom­achs and clothes for our backs, love is noth­ing. Ah my la­dy, the last man any woman should think of mar­ry­ing is the man she loves.”

Oc­to­ber 18 marks the last chance this year for pan lovers world­wide to ex­pe­ri­ence steel­pan at its finest at a Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion. As part of Pan Trin­ba­go’s 2025 Panora­ma cal­en­dar, which runs from No­vem­ber 2024, To­ba­go will host its new­ly mint­ed Na­tion­al Panora­ma Com­pe­ti­tion, PanOmega — a re-imag­ined, re­struc­tured, and re­brand­ed ver­sion of the for­mer THA Pan Champs, tra­di­tion­al­ly held in Feb­ru­ary.

To­ba­go’s pre­mier jazz ex­pe­ri­ence is back and big­ger than ever. Beach­front Jazz 2026 will light up the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach & Golf Re­sort from April 30 to May 3, as part of the To­ba­go Jazz Mu­sic and Golf Week­end. This year’s fes­ti­val promis­es a vi­brant cel­e­bra­tion of Caribbean jazz rhythms, artistry and is­land spir­it.

Thanks to new so­lar tech­nol­o­gy, the cen­tre—the heart­beat of the eco-tourism vil­lage and home to a choco­late fac­to­ry, guid­ed tours, and a tur­tle hatch­ery—now op­er­ates as a self-sus­tain­ing hub of re­new­able en­er­gy, pow­er­ing es­sen­tial com­mu­ni­ty en­ter­pris­es and sup­port­ing long-term de­vel­op­ment.

From the bub­bling of hot oil to the rhyth­mic stir­ring of bat­ter, kitchens across T&T hum with heat, hus­tle, and the promise of some­thing sweet for Di­vali.

A shared com­mit­ment to com­mu­ni­ty well-be­ing took cen­tre stage on Sep­tem­ber 26, as Cream­ery Yo­gurt and the T&T Can­cer So­ci­ety (TTCS) of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced a new part­ner­ship aimed at rais­ing funds and aware­ness in the fight against can­cer.