By Shabna Ullah
A 10-year-old girl of Rosignol, West Bank Berbice walked away with the one of the crowns from a field of seven older contestants at the Miss Indian/African Beauty Pageant held at the Blairmont Community Centre Ground recently.
Tanuja Hardeo won the Indian segment while 17-year-old Latasha Tandika Johnson who represented D’ Edward emerged the winner of the African segment. They both received bouquets, trophies and other prizes.
Latasha was one of seven beauties vying for the crown. She chose teenage pregnancy as her platform and was a crowd favourite from the inception.
When Master of Ceremonies Christopher Holder asked her what advice she would give to a friend who tells her she is pregnant, the judges seemed to be impressed with her answer.
She responded quite confidently that she would advise her friend not to abort the baby but to go to the nearest health centre where she could have an HIV test so she could have a healthy pregnancy. She said she would also tell her to continue her education and to seek counselling.
Tanuja, a classical and interpretative dancer imitated Indian actress, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and performed an interpretative dance for her talent piece, filmi style, leaving everyone spellbound. She, too, was a crowd favourite and despite her age she did not fail to impress the judges.
Her question, based on her platform, Discrimination and AIDS, was whether she would discriminate against her neighbour who was living with HIV/AIDS.
Quite boldly she responded, “No, I would not discriminate against anyone living with HIV and AIDS…” She said too that the virus can be prevented by ABC – Abstinence, Be Faithful and Condomize.
The girl also sent the crowd wild when she urged them not to “discriminate but to show love, support and respect.”
Both queens had grace, confidence and charisma as they modelled in casual, evening and cultural attire.
Tanuja, whose evening gown was designed by her grandmother, wants to follow in her footsteps and become a designer. She enjoys reading interesting books, dancing, modelling and sightseeing.
In her introduction, Tanuja proudly declared that she is “no stranger to the stage” as she has been involved in cultural activities and competitions, for which she won many trophies, from the “tender age of five.”
It was quite surprising that some of the older girls in both segments who obviously memorized their introductions were nervous and fumbled for words. Some of them even forgot what they had to say and at least one contestant had to start all over again.
Despite that, though, they all modelled well and wore beautiful outfits for all the categories, especially the evening gown segment.
When the questions were asked of the finalists, all except for Tanuja and Latasha were not sure how to answer.
The 10-year-old Grade Five student is not only a talented model and dancer but also a brilliant student who achieves no less that second in her class tests.
She was also recently selected along with another student, Ridwan Azeez to represent her school, Rosignol Primary at a Spelling Bee competition.
Placing second and third for the Indian segment of the competition respectively, were Premika Anand, 14, a student of the Bush Lot Secondary, and Chrissy Kangal.
Tanuja said she felt “proud and happy to win the crown.”
In an interview she said she entered the competition because she knew she had the ability to compete. Although she was surprised to be the winner, she was confident that she would have done well.
The soft-spoken Tanuja recalled that during the two months of training for the competition “the trainers give us a lot of fun.”
She said although some of the older girls were telling her that she was too small and were asking her why she wanted to compete against them, she was not discouraged.
Promoters for the Indian Segment were Gary and Sabrina Samlall of Rosignol while the African segment was promoted by Quasy of D’ Edward and Michelle of New Amsterdam.
Some persons openly expressed disappointment, saying that the pageant was poorly judged and they were not satisfied with the results.
However the promoters felt that the judges – Rhonda Blair, proprietor of Stretch D Dollar Supermarket, Mr Gordon of Gordon’s Boutique, Faneeza Shamshudeen and Shivanie Persaud were fair.
While 17-year-old Latasha is happy that she won the pageant she is disappointed with the prizes she received and boldly said the promoters short-changed the queens.
“I know I deserve the crown because I did my best and I had experience,” the new queen told The Scene when contacted recently.
The experience she spoke about is a school pageant she participated in two years ago and she did not win that title but she maintains that she worked very hard during the last pageant and could not have received anything less than the crown.
“I am happy that I won but not too happy about the prizes they gave us,” she said.
According to Latasha, she received a large trophy, a bouquet, a hair cream, two colognes and a bottle of Coco Butter cream.
She was also adjudged Miss Congeniality and for that she was given “two silver rings that look like deh already wear. If you see, new silver ring suppose to shine but they red, red, if somebody donate it they could at least shine it. And they light, light.”
She was also not impressed with the colognes as they appeared to be cheap and the “scent goes away five minutes after you spray it on”.
Latasha was also adjudged Miss Photo-genic, but she is still awaiting the prize for this category. She was told initially that it would be a photo shoot at a New Amsterdam studio but so far this has not happened.
“One of the promoters said she has to give me the papers to take to the studio but she did not give them to me. I went two times and she made excuses; I am not going back,” the teenager declared.
The new queen, who has intentions of participating in the Miss Emancipation pageant, said she worked very hard and her mother spent a lot of money to ensure she participated in the pageant and she feels that the prizes could have been more substantial. She said initially the contestants were told after many questions that they were “modelling for $100,000 but this they gave me is no hundred thousand.”
She recalled that she had to pay a drummer and dance teacher $1,000 a day for a week as she prepared for her talent piece and many of the contestants spent a lot of money in preparation.
The girls were also part of food sales in support of the pageant and on both occasions the items were sold out.
“People supported the pageant and kept donating things. They had even told us that somebody donated a gold chain and ring with diamond and none of the contestants have seen any of this,” she said.
She said when she was presented with the Miss Congeniality prize it was in an envelope that had the name of a very reputable jewellery store printed on it and she was of the impression that the ring and chain were in there.
“All the time I telling me sister to keep it safe and when I went home and open it was two thin, thin silver rings,” Latasha said.
The queen said while she would honour her obligations as a queen she would never support any event promoted by the organizers of the pageant.
Johnson said she graduated from Belladrum Secondary School with seven subjects.
Before the pageant the beauties representing various West Berbice villages were taken on a trip to Splashmins Resort for a photo shoot while another was held at the venue one week before the pageant.
They also made guest appearances at the Mori J’ von Comedy Jam at the Canje Welfare Ground and were sashed by popular Trinidadian Chutney singer, ‘D’ Hitman.
Ron Morrison of Mori J’ von also sponsored a television show in Berbice where three of the delegates appeared and promoted the pageant.
