Literature, Performance & Storytelling
Formal Education
My interest in literature and writing was shaped through five years of formal study in English Literature, with a focus on Shakespeare, Caribbean poetry, and global prose, which strengthened my critical reading and analytical writing skills.
Alongside this, I pursued foreign languages, studying French for five years and Spanish for three years, deepening my appreciation for linguistic nuance and cross-cultural expression.
My engagement with creative and analytical writing was formally recognized at Speech Day at Naparima Girls’ High School, where I received The Mona Jamadar Prize for Creative Writing and The JT Allum and Company Limited Award for English Literature, acknowledging both my originality in written expression and academic excellence in literary studies.
Gold Finalist: Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition
Awarded Gold Finalist in the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition 2025 from 53,434 global submissions.
'The Lotto Ticket: A Jumbie’s Lament' is a narrative that reimagines Caribbean folklore to interrogate systemic poverty and health inequity. Drawing on the figure of the jumbie, traditionally depicted as a malevolent spirit bound to the earth by bitterness or unfinished business, the story subverts this mythology by recasting the jumbie as a quiet protector tethered by love rather than vengeance.
Told from the perspective of a deceased father who lingers after dying from complications of untreated diabetes, the narrative blends folklore, social realism, and intergenerational grief.
To read the full piece:
Legends Beyond Borders
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Legends Beyond Borders is a folklore writing and translation initiative I founded to document and share Caribbean and Indian stories across cultures. What began as a personal project rooted in my love for books and storytelling evolved into a multilingual platform when I decided to apply my five years of formal French study to translation.
Through this work, I write original articles and translate folktales for younger and global audiences, paying close attention to cultural nuance, tone, and accessibility.
Occasionally, this research has involved unconventional methods (including children’s media), all in service of ensuring that folklore travels faithfully beyond its borders.
1st Place: National Riverspeak Spoken Word Competition
Theme: People's Solutions to Plastic Pollution
Riverspeak is a co-authored dramatic poem written by Kaelyn Dipchand and me, addressing river pollution through personification and extended metaphor. The river is written as a first-person speaker with memory, agency, and vulnerability, transforming an ecosystem into a living witness of environmental harm, while pollution is characterized as a parasitic antagonist that “interrupts” and “entangles” the river’s natural flow.
A key device in the poem is the extended metaphor of the river’s body, where algae becomes “acne,” plastic barricades its “veins,” and flooding is framed as a physiological response to injury, mirroring how environmental damage manifests as systemic collapse.
Allusion is also used deliberately, drawing on references such as Hermes’ caduceus and the River Nile in Exodus to connect modern plastic pollution with ancient symbols of balance, fate, and survival. The strength of the written composition advanced the piece to the national finals, where its performance placed 1st nationally.
To read the full piece:
Director & Lead of School Musical exploring AI and Automation
I wrote and directed an original school musical exploring the promise and dangers of artificial intelligence, using the stage to examine questions of automation, agency, and human relevance.
Although I usually work behind the scenes in technical roles, this project marked a deliberate shift toward on-stage storytelling, where I also performed to better understand the relationship between narrative, audience, and embodiment.
I trained and coordinated students from Grades 9–12 across the Cambridge curriculum, designing rehearsals, guiding character development, and ensuring thematic coherence.
While I delegated choreography and select creative elements to peers, I oversaw the integration of music, movement, costumes, and staging into a unified production.
Ours was the only fully student-written, student-directed, and student-run performance, in contrast to other productions where teachers led all creative decisions.
The musical was well received by parents and audiences, who appreciated both its originality and its thoughtful engagement with a contemporary ethical issue.
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Indian Cultural Club: Vice President & Dance Choreographer
At Naparima Girls’ High School, I served as Vice President of the Indian Cultural Club, where I helped preserve and celebrate Indian heritage through performance and community events.
My role involved training junior dancers in semi-classical Indian dance (even students that have never danced before in their lives), mentoring them in technique, expression, and stage confidence, and assisting performers with costume selection and presentation.
I played a central role in organizing full-scale cultural showcases for Indian Arrival Day and Diwali, coordinating performances and programming while serving as the Master of Ceremonies for these events.
Through this work, I combined artistic practice with leadership, using dance and storytelling to build cultural pride, continuity, and community within the school.
6th Place | TSL International Student Essay Competition
Check out my full piece:
This essay approaches climate justice through personification, giving Trinidad and Tobago its own narrative voice to expose how inequality intensifies the climate crisis for Small Island Developing States (SIDS). By speaking as the nation, the piece reframes climate change not as an abstract phenomenon but as a lived experience shaped by global power imbalances.
Weaving imagery and emotive appeal with policy critique, this essay addresses three intersecting inequalities: the vulnerability of SIDS to fossil-fuel dependency, the marginalization of refugees displaced by climate instability, and the exclusion of indigenous knowledge systems.
Ultimately, the piece argues that addressing inequality is not peripheral to climate action but central to it, positioning climate change as both an environmental and moral crisis.