Miss In­dia Trinidad and To­ba­go ti­tle hold­er Melis­sa Har­ry­lal is head­ing to New Jer­sey, USA, to rep­re­sent this coun­try at the 27th An­nu­al Miss In­dia World­wide Pageant.

The Pi­paro res­i­dent leaves on Sun­day for the grand fi­nal of the in­ter­na­tion­al event on De­cem­ber 14.

Har­ry­lal de­scribed her jour­ney as Miss In­dia Trinidad and To­ba­go so far as an “amaz­ing and a life-chang­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.” “At first it was a bit stress­ful hav­ing to bal­ance uni­ver­si­ty and per­son­al life in ad­di­tion to be­ing an am­bas­sador for my coun­try but it has worked out per­fect­ly in the end,” Har­ry­lal said.

“I al­so had a lot of fun dur­ing pageant train­ing for the in­ter­na­tion­al pageant. I’d like to give spe­cial thanks to my di­rec­tors Mahin­dra Ram­per­sad and Er­i­ca Caton for all the hard work they have done, to get me ready for the in­ter­na­tion­al pageant.”

She said be­ing Miss In­dia Trinidad and To­ba­go has al­so helped build her self-con­fi­dence and changed her out­look on life.

“I have grown from the shy and qui­et girl in­to the out­stand­ing, out­spo­ken, charis­mat­ic in­di­vid­ual that I am to­day with more life skills ex­pe­ri­ence that will help for the rest of my life,” Har­ry­lal said.

“This is a once in a life­time op­por­tu­ni­ty giv­en to me to rep­re­sent my coun­try and cul­ture at Miss In­dia World­wide 2018 and is a dream come true. This will be the first time I am leav­ing my coun­try and it's for an event to make my coun­try proud. I am re­al­ly ex­cit­ed and I can­not wait to meet the oth­er del­e­gates and show the world what Trinidad and To­ba­go has to of­fer.”