A plate of buf­fa­lo galawati ke­babs ar­rives at the ta­ble at Tun­day Kababi, a fa­mous restau­rant in Phool Wali Gali, a nar­row lane in Luc­know’s old quar­ter.

There were no po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions, re­li­gious dif­fer­ences or racial bar­ri­ers when the aro­ma of fresh­ly made dou­bles filled the air on Re­pub­lic Day.

With decades of ex­pe­ri­ence as a nurse, Denise Gibbs-Clarke was fa­mil­iar with the strug­gles can­cer pa­tients faced. Yet when she was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer in 2023, her un­der­stand­ing of the dis­ease took on a whole new mean­ing.

While it does not dom­i­nate every but­ter­fly species in terms of va­ri­ety or size, its stun­ning colours, con­spic­u­ous pres­ence and epic mi­gra­tion have giv­en rise to its name, Monarch, which in oth­er set­tings means a roy­al ruler or a dom­i­nant fig­ure.

When nurse Rachael Ab­so­lam-Browne joined the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal’s On­col­o­gy and Haema­tol­ogy De­part­ment around eight years ago, she did not know that, two years lat­er, she would be­come a pa­tient in that same ward.

“Ery­the­ma Tox­i­cum Neona­to­rum” is the com­plete, hor­ri­ble name med­ical pedants give to it, guar­an­teed to im­press and scare any par­ent. It means “tox­ic red­ness of the new­born”. It is cer­tain­ly red, usu­al­ly dis­crete but oc­ca­sion­al­ly florid, but cer­tain­ly not tox­ic. The name should be changed to Ery­the­ma Joc­u­laris be­cause it is a com­mon, jokey skin con­di­tion that ap­pears on some ba­bies in the first few days of life, lasts about sev­en to ten days and most­ly dis­ap­pears by two weeks.

Com­e­dy has al­ways been Cindy-Ann Bois­son’s safe space. Mil­len­ni­als may recog­nise her as the woman be­hind the icon­ic lo­cal Pow­er­mint ad where she fa­mous­ly said, “Af­ter a din­ner of bake and smoke her­ring I suck two pow­er­mints in prepa­ra­tion for oth­er things with my male com­pan­ion.” And if there was ever a time that it came in handy for the now 54-year-old, it was in Sep­tem­ber 2025, when she was di­ag­nosed with breast can­cer.

Kadelia Mc Sween, a nurse for six years, has ded­i­cat­ed her life to car­ing for oth­ers. Now di­ag­nosed with ovar­i­an can­cer, the 34-year-old finds her­self ask­ing oth­ers to help care for her.

On Oc­to­ber 11, In­ter­na­tion­al Day of the Girl Child, we cel­e­brate girls’ am­bi­tions and speak about their rights. The well-be­haved aca­d­e­m­ic is easy to cel­e­brate, but the fright­ened, de­fi­ant or con­fused ado­les­cent al­so needs our sup­port.

It was ex­act­ly as the web­site de­scribed it—a well-kept, rus­tic lit­tle cab­in sur­round­ed by lush green­ery, alive with the sounds of birds, in­sects and fur­ry crea­tures go­ing about their day. The late-af­ter­noon sun sprin­kled lazy spots of light through the leaves of the trees, ig­nor­ing the scowls of a few near­by clouds.

One out­stand­ing so­cial work­er, re­former and heal­er of T&T was Doon Pan­dit. Who was this cit­i­zen who made a pos­i­tive im­pact on the lives of hun­dreds of peo­ple?

His lov­ing car­er-grand­daugh­ter, An­jali Bharath said, “He’s my sweet grand­fa­ther. He has a sweet tooth, but he doesn’t have di­a­betes. He starts his day with cof­fee which he likes creamy; sweet­ened with con­densed milk, has a hearty break­fast – at times, a full Eng­lish break­fast – and he’s healthy, fun-lov­ing, en­ter­pris­ing and kind.”