The en­dur­ing mes­sage of Di­vali, the tri­umph of light over dark­ness, is one that should res­onate, not on­ly with mem­bers of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty but all cit­i­zens who are com­mit­ted to the de­vel­op­ment and pros­per­i­ty of our twin is­lands. In­deed, the vic­to­ry of light over dark­ness and good over evil is a ba­sic phi­los­o­phy of most re­li­gions around the world. It al­so in­flu­ences moral and eth­i­cal stan­dards, not just in mat­ters of faith, but as a stan­dard to be fol­lowed in every area of life.

This year, the Di­vali mes­sage takes on greater sig­nif­i­cance be­cause of the chal­lenges, weath­er-re­lat­ed and oth­er­wise, from which T&T is on­ly just emerg­ing. The dark­ness of trau­ma and loss faced by fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by floods and land­slides caused by three days of tor­ren­tial rain brought out the light of many acts of hero­ism, char­i­ty, and sup­port. The coun­try con­tin­ues to bask in those il­lu­mi­nat­ing acts, which are forg­ing a pos­i­tive path for­ward in the midst of nu­mer­ous chal­lenges, even to­day.

Di­vali, which lit­er­al­ly means “rows of lamps”, is cel­e­brat­ed on one of the dark­est days of the year and the deyas that are lit demon­strate how one lamp can light sev­er­al oth­ers with­out los­ing any of its bril­liance. By be­com­ing man­i­fold, the light los­es noth­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to Hin­du scrip­tures, it was on this day that God­dess Lak­sh­mi, who emerged from the churn­ing of the ocean of milk (Ksheera Sagara), mar­ried Lord Vish­nu, the repos­i­to­ry of all di­vine qual­i­ties.

The il­lu­mi­na­tions, fire­works, and joy­ful fes­tiv­i­ties that have been tak­ing place in com­mu­ni­ties across T&T in re­cent days sig­ni­fy the vic­to­ry of di­vine forces over the pow­ers of dark­ness.

Tonight, when thou­sands of deyas il­lu­mi­nate homes and pub­lic spaces all over this na­tion, cit­i­zens will get a pow­er­ful re­minder of vic­to­ry over de­feat, light over dark­ness, aware­ness over ig­no­rance. All cit­i­zens should em­brace this oc­ca­sion to cel­e­brate life.

Shubh Di­vali to all!

Dree­vait on the red car­pet

Top T&T de­sign­er Ecliff Elie has had a suc­cess­ful show­ing of his Dree­vait Re­sort col­lec­tion at Do­mini­cana Mo­da 2018, one of the re­gion's pre­miere fash­ion events, which took place last month in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

Mr Elie's col­lec­tion fea­tured in the Caribbean Run­way seg­ment of the red car­pet event and from all re­ports was well re­ceived.

This is just the lat­est achieve­ment for this tal­ent­ed de­sign­er who was re­spon­si­ble for Olatun­ji Year­wood's stun­ning stage wear dur­ing his ap­pear­ances in this year's UK X fac­tor and even out­fit­ted reg­gae star Jah Cure for his con­cert in T&T a few months ago.

Mr Elie has cer­tain­ly earned his place among the many fash­ion de­sign­ers who have been tak­ing T&T style to the world, in­clud­ing Meil­ing, Clau­dia Pe­gus, and Heather Jones.

Take a bow, Sir!