Kalain Ho­sein

Nadi­ra Mangray-Gup­ta, the wife of the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Ku­mar Gup­ta, has left her mark on T&T.

Re­flect­ing yes­ter­day on her short two-and-a-half-year stay in the coun­try, as the Gup­tas are set to move on­to a new post­ing from T&T, she said it was a chal­leng­ing time for many on all fronts.

“From ad­ver­si­ty comes strength. I’ve had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to the well­ness of the vul­ner­a­ble here in so­ci­ety, to help mi­cro-, nano-, and small busi­ness­es, and to share the vi­sion of wildlife con­ser­va­tion,” Gup­ta re­count­ed in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

In one of her first ini­tia­tives, she cre­at­ed a space to help lo­cal busi­ness­es of dif­fer­ent sizes stay afloat dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and be­yond through a Face­book Page, a #UCan­Piv­ot hash­tag, and vir­tu­al meet­ings. She ex­plained that dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, it be­came very ap­par­ent that busi­ness­es had to bring their ser­vices to the cus­tomers.

Gup­ta said, “I had a mar­ket­ing ex­ec­u­tive from New York call in. We did a vir­tu­al meet­ing with sev­er­al busi­ness­es here in T&T, and they were able to learn and pick up some ideas on how to mar­ket their busi­ness­es dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, which was very fruit­ful.”

Al­though she was evac­u­at­ed from the coun­try at the start of the pan­dem­ic, she re­turned by the end of 2020 and a new need arose.

The na­tion’s most vul­ner­a­ble were pushed in­to a food cri­sis due to the lock­down.

She said, “I think it was in­cum­bent on us to do what­ev­er we could to en­sure they were tak­en care of.”

Gup­ta part­nered with Joy of Giv­ing, which pro­vides food for the home­less, and con­duct­ed a food dri­ve.

“The cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the busi­ness­es that were hurt­ing so bad­ly, stepped up, paid it for­ward and helped out when they were most need­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty, which speaks vol­umes to the spir­it and cul­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she re­called of the ini­tia­tive

She al­so sup­port­ed the front­line and health­care work­ers at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty through food ham­pers. While she ad­mit­ted it was mod­est, she said: “It was some­thing to help.”

How­ev­er, from all of Gup­ta’s work in T&T, she was most pas­sion­ate about her ef­forts in wildlife con­ser­va­tion, which she record­ed via pho­tog­ra­phy.

“I’ve al­ways had a love for an­i­mals. In all of our post­ings, whether in Ethiopia, Zam­bia, or Zim­bab­we, I was able to be around some in­cred­i­ble an­i­mals. I think it’s the as you can see ex­pres­sion on their faces, the sto­ries that that are un­told that we can try to tell. My pas­sion has al­ways been the ex­pres­sion, try­ing to find cre­ative ways of bring­ing an­i­mals to life,” she said

Some of Gup­ta’s pho­tographs, promi­nent­ly dis­played in the of­fi­cial Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er’s res­i­dence, were shot across Trinidad.

These pho­tos and her pho­tog­ra­phy skills were lever­aged for her char­i­ta­ble work, where she host­ed a ben­e­fit event dur­ing the lock­down.

The pro­ceeds were giv­en to the Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go for its Wildlife Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and Rein­te­gra­tion Pro­gramme.

Some of the pho­tos were al­so used on the pack­ag­ing of a lim­it­ed-edi­tion can­dle line by lo­cal can­dle com­pa­ny Galt & Ma­ree Apothe­cary Co., to raise aware­ness and en­gage the com­mu­ni­ty in na­ture preser­va­tion.

A stay in Trinidad and To­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly for a na­ture-lover like Gup­ta, would be in­com­plete with­out a trip to Grande Riv­iere to vis­it the en­dan­gered Leatherback tur­tles dur­ing the nest­ing sea­son.

She vis­it­ed a Na­ture Seek­ers project that was fund­ed by Cana­da’s De­part­ment for Fish­eries and Oceans, where GPS track­ers are placed on the tur­tles – an an­i­mal that is spe­cial to both Cana­da and Trinidad and To­ba­go.

She ex­plained, “Cana­da is cel­e­brat­ing 60 years of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Trinidad and To­ba­go. I’m hap­py to say that the leatherbacks are the orig­i­nal dual na­tion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Cana­da; they’ve trav­elled as far as 12,000 kilo­me­tres in the At­lantic Ocean from the coasts of No­va Sco­tia to reach the shores of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Gup­ta rem­i­nisced on the op­por­tu­ni­ties she was able to give back in nar­rat­ing the re­la­tion­ship she’s shared with Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“We all know that giv­ing is the new re­ceiv­ing. It’s re­ceiv­ing the gift of see­ing this beau­ti­ful coun­try, meet­ing its peo­ple. My hus­band and I will take away glo­ri­ous mem­o­ries, al­though they’ve been lim­it­ed in na­ture,” she said.

She rev­elled in T&T’s na­ture dur­ing her short stay and ap­pre­ci­at­ed the fu­sion of food, the im­mense cre­ativ­i­ty, and the peo­ple she met.

“Al­though we were in lock­down, sev­er­al peo­ple reached out and stayed in touch through­out the pan­dem­ic. For that, we are for­ev­er grate­ful. We will cher­ish that, and I think that you know, it’s not every­where you can go dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and have that kind of last­ing friend­ship.”

On whether they will re­turn to T&T, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en that they did not ex­pe­ri­ence a lo­cal Car­ni­val, Gup­ta ex­claimed, “Ab­solute­ly! Well, if they let us but ab­solute­ly.”