First Person Singular

Two-year-old Zainab Mughal seems like any toddler with her huge smile and love of toys.

We frequently feasted on the juicy, orange “awara,” pale nutty “korio” and oval, thin-fleshed “kokerit” fruits from far flung palm trees.

Bankers never die…They just lose all interest. The popular saying goes that the problem with banker jokes is that bankers don’t think such quips are funny, while ordinary people don’t think of these as jokes.

With no television around, and none in sight, for decades, even remotely, in the south Georgetown backstreets I and my varied pals haunted, we children regularly begged adults to relate scary “stories.”

Close to Christmas, I was visiting a popular store in downtown St John’s, Antigua, searching for gifts when a woman suddenly flared up nearby.

Hiking through the humming forest along Guyana’s upper Potaro River in the deep dark of night, the American herpetologist slowly swung his flashlight, scanning for secretive creatures.

The faint wisp of pale smoke would curl through the top hole in our covered tin can like a weak, wavering genie, as we sucked in our breaths, impatiently waiting for the big blast.

Worried about the heavy rains like thousands more residents, Jizzelle Baldwin kept trying to get home last Friday evening, but all the usual routes in Central Trinidad were already cut off.

It would come without warning, often after dinner and just before bedtime.

Back in the 1980s, an unlikely colony of bright blue, cute, elf-like creatures soared to international success through a hit television animated series that aired on Saturday mornings.

A Greek comic poet of the 4th century BC, Eubulus joked about alcohol consumption and its deleterious effects recommending no more than three measured drinks as sensible.

As elegant beauties go, she is extraordinary and unforgettable. Yet only a fortunate few can claim to have ever met her.

Leaping into the air, the lanky Trinidadian medium-pacer with the trademark tan mohawk took a spectacular right-hand catch, gripping the ball even as he tumbled at mid-on.

For over two incredible months, the 34-year-old labourer fought valiantly to live as many weaker souls perished around him.

As the “Louisa Baillie” careened in cold, rough seas not far from India, the decisive drama of fragile life and certain death played out aboard the ill-equipped sailing ship.

At first glance, the mottled paper cover of the old, obscure book looks like polished granite with its uneven patches of dark brown against bright cream.

“God just pass through,” the Rasta man concluded while calmly filming with his phone, the chaotic scenes in one of the busiest areas in downtown Port-of-Spain (POS).

In his early 50s, the ailing “Ragoo” knew that he might not last through the tough journey from British Guiana (BG) to India, yet he optimistically insisted on returning home.

News that a second ship, the “Louisa Baillie” was finally on its way to sail them back to India would have prompted much excitement and relief among the 1838-indentured labourers.

The influential 2000-year-old Sanskrit epic of the Ramayana narrates the perennially popular allegory of the divine prince Rama who is reluctantly exiled for 14 years by his distraught father, Dasharatha.