Guest Columns

I have known empty; I have lived empty many times in my life. There’s the running on empty that goes well beyond the mere Monday to Friday exhaustion spawned by the world of work. The bone-deep lassitude that slowly but steadily seeps into your soul and its spread is similar …

Even after they were eliminated by Belgium in the World Cup Round of 16 on Monday, the Japan National Football Team and their supporters gave us a lesson in class and a taste of their culture. I read that their fans cleaned up the section of the stadium where they …

By 1787 the English had just about constructed myths of their own about themselves where to be British was to be free and white. This despite their own history of being slaves of the Romans, at least one of whom, Cicero, wasn’t too impressed with them. They exported their notion …

“Where a black man, by working about half an hour a day (such is the calculation), can supply himself, by aid of sun and soil, with as much pumpkin as will suffice, he is likely to be a little stiff to raise into hard work! Supply and demand, which science …

The more I want to be optimistic about my Trinidad and Tobago’s current situation and our chances and ability to climb out of the decadent cesspool we currently find ourselves, the more I’m convince that my positive outlook is overshadowed by the reality of our state of affairs. Many—including the …

Curiosity got the better of me last Friday—on 8 June 2018—and I chose the much publicised “Laventille Nights” with our first female President, President Paula-Mae Weekes, over my usual Friday evening lime with friends. I wasn’t sure if it was at Beetham or Sea Lots but the flashing blue lights, …

It is amazing how a group of  “religious leaders” can scramble together in such a frenzy to deny a smaller group of persons their basic human rights—all with the general understanding that their respective gods are loving and caring and created humankind in his image, subsequently giving them free will. …

Bim Singh’s final fall is the harsh culmination of the metaphor of entrapment that runs through the film. A mesh, inescapable, awaits Bim everywhere, even in his opulent, new haven. It is an element of the past which refuses to go away that jumps out of nowhere on his return …

In Trinbago, there is no racism, only prejudice. Well, daiz wha some people try to explain to mih after mih piece last week. Come to the US and Canada, they told me, to experience “real” racism—I have been to the US some years ago US and have experienced it first-hand. …

Andre Tanker orchestrates—there is no better word—perfect harmony between musical movements and plot movements. Key to that harmony is the articulation of a fusion that proved a prophetic precursor to the diversity of musical forms taken for granted in Trinidad today. At a time when ‘Trinidad music’ meant almost exclusively …

“Revisiting Bim four and a half decades later, thanks to the 40th Anniversary Film and Music Pack, I find the film’s imperfections all the more endearing, its shortcomings charming. Perfection in any home-grown Trinidad film product back then would have been out of sync with place and context; it remains …

“Doudou!” “Darling! “Darkie!” “Red ting!” “Sweet ting! “Slim ting!” “Tick ting!” “Tall ting!” Their catcalls come at us from all sides, across the street, across the room, in the Stadium, in the Oval, in City Gate, at the taxi-stand, everywhere. Their candid remarks about our bodies are delivered without hesitation, …