Central Beat magazine May-July 2017 Central Beat May-July 2017 | Page 3

CentralBeat Page 3 May 2017 From T he E ditor’s D esk Beauty, of all kind, thrives in Central Trinidad By Vashty Maharaj Editor/Publisher A discussion with my five-year-old niece, Aarya, centred on the topic of beauty. She exclaimed at how pretty a flower was and I added how beautiful the leaves of the flowers were as well. “Leaves are pretty?” she asked with a laugh and then observed them and me with real interest. “Yes,” I said, “everything has beauty if you really look at it.” “Not snakes though, snakes are not pretty,” she said with absolute certainty. “Well,” I said, “snakes might be scary but that doesn’t mean they can’t be beau- tiful. If you look at them you can see how their skin is all different colours and they move in the most beautiful way.” She might still be busy trying to come to terms with my view of the world but the discussion certainly set me down a road of thought on beauty and how we perceive beauty; how we value certain types of beauty over others – the beauty queen, for example, is hailed 20, 30, 50 years later for their ‘contributions’ to soci- ety but the woman at the temple or mosque who gives of her time day in and day out to support her community, hardly ever finds herself highlighted or cele- brated in the media. As a journalist, a professional ob- server of life and someone who enjoys an- alyzing the whys and wherefores of life around, I took note of the fact that when LoopTT two years in a row highlighted 10 or so women who had contributed signifi- cantly to TT, they could only find one Indo-Trinidadian woman and that was Drupatie. In their minds, appearances in the national media equated to contribu- tion. Because Indo culture and people are not widely highlighted in mainstream media that new-media site still could not think outside of the box or go searching outside of mainstream media mentions for outstanding females. Since I am fortunate enough to have access to a non-mainstream media publi- cation I made the decision to start high- lighting those women, and later on, men, who have contributed to our society. I will begin in this edition with Indo women be- cause those are the ones who were side- lined or, indeed, not considered to have added value to their society; but I am aware that Central Trinidad has thousands of persons of all races, ages, religions, cultures, who have made valuable and in- deed, beautiful, contributions to their communities and society. In this our May-July edition you can find the stories of Faadia Ali and Ada Mo- hammed (Pages 14 and 15), two women who have worked tirelessly over many, many years to help and support the people and the work of their communities. Because the voluntary work of women is often expected and taken for granted in most societies, few of us stop to think what loving effort it must take to step out- side of the home where these women were kept busy raising kids, or finish a day’s work in the office, take care of the kids and still make time to go help in the com- munity. There is beauty in that effort and in that contribution, we just have to look for it and acknowledge the beauty of the human heart. Of course Central Trinidad, and more particularly Chaguanas, is also home to the more traditional avenues of beauty – the beauty salon, or the day spa, as most now prefer to call themselves. In this edi- tion we begin looking at the thriving beauty industry in this heartland of the country (See Pages 4-6) which will con- tinue in our next edition in August. It has always been a fascination to me that Chaguanas has more salons and spas per square metre than any other part of this country or perhaps any other part of the Caribbean. What is it about this partic- ular space that gave birth to such a phe- nomenon? Certainly t he entrepreneurial spirit is a huge part of that, a desire to found and create and shape a vision for yourself. Given that Chaguanas is the town that built itself out of the entrepreneurial drive of the indentured people who came, it seems inevitable that the children of the indentured would also find a way to craft their own identities through work. Indi- vidualism, of course, plays a role in this entrepreneurial spirit and that desire to be your own boss is a highly seductive in- ducement. For every privileged third generation Chaguanas child thriving and building on the wealth developed by their forefathers, there are 1000 others who have to struggle and scrabble to make a living; there is beauty, for me, in watching them learn and grow and thrive in their tiny salons tucked into upper floors of the malls along the Chaguanas Main Road or in a space crafted under their house in order to save money on rent while working tirelessly sometimes 12 hours per day, seven days a week. Of course, the beauty industry that began on the Chaguanas Main Road has grown and spread throughout the borough and is now also growing in another direc- tion. From beauty salon to day spa, we are CENTRAL BEAT now heading into cosmeceutical country with medi-spas now starting to pop up in Chaguanas. Botox and fillers for wrinkles, machines for cellulite and a million other skin issues…they are all invading Central Trinidad. It is left to be seen how this im- pacts on the traditional spas and salons. There is an entirely different discus- sion to be had, of course, on the unneces- sary pressure we put on women, and increasingly, men, to shape and fashion themselves into what is deemed accept- able ‘beauty’, forced on us by white West- ern standards. That discussion is for another time but in the meantime let us all take some time on any given weekend to head to the nearest spa for a massage, a mani-pedi, a facial or anything that gives you a chance for some self-care and relax- ation in this mad, bad and crazy, but often beautiful, country we call home. About the Editor/Publisher: Vashty Maharaj is a journalist with over 20 years of experience in the local media, including the Trinidad Newsday, Trinidad Guardian and Trinidad Ex- press. Ms Maharaj holds a Master’s De- gree in Gender and Development Stud- ies and a Bachelor of Science degree in International Relations. Ms Maharaj was born in Central Trinidad and started Central Beat be- cause she believes that there is real and urgent need for the people of Central Trinidad to be put on the national map for the many achievements of the Cen- tral community. Contacts: Email: [email protected]; [email protected] Tel: [phone] From Caroni to California, Cunupia to Carapichaima, All Central A New and Fascinating FREE Publication For The People of Central Trinidad! * Culture, Entertainment, Art, Sport, People * Business Profiles, Clubs, Dining, Liming * Children, Family, Relationship Issues * Fitness, Tech & Toys, Books, Beauty & more Household reach of over 20,000 people Competitive rates in Advertising Copies inserted in the Trinidad Guardian, also distributed to supermarkets, pharmacies, salons, boutiques, shops, malls and more Central Beat ... celebrating the heartbeat of the Nation. Tel: [phone] or [email protected]