Mario’s Retrospective in the Offing

A drawing of the Capela do Monte, Old Goa, will form part of a retrospective on Mario Miranda’s work, to be exhibited in Lisbon’s Sociedade Nacional de belas Artes, this November. Sponsored by the Fundação Oriente, a section of the exhibition will be devoted to Goa. The exhibition will also travel to Brazil, New York and London at a later date.

Mahindra Offbeat Drive

This time, Mahindra drove South. After four offbeat drives in North Goa, Sportscraft the organisers of the Mahindra drive they call trekking on wheels, left Kala Academy Panjim and drove down to Selaulim dam, going via Curtorim, Chandor, Sao Jose de Areal, Sanvordem and culminated at Selaulim. The route was slightly longer this time – 110 kms – but the drive ended by afternoon where the participants lunched at the dam and later returned to Panjim.

Bonderam Round the Corner

The island of Divar will resound to drum beats on August 26, as the villagers celebrate the harvest festival, locally going by the sobriquet Bonderam. The festival which dates back to the tribal age, will get off to a start at four in the evening with a flag march followed by a float parade. The origin of the festival is believed to have been community quarrels over farmland. To put a stop to the fights, coloured banners were used by the different communities to demarcate their boundaries. and on the eve of the harvest, the community leader would go round with the coloured banners to investigate any encroachment. With the arrival of the Portuguese and comunidades, the age-old custom was done away with, but to maintain the tradition, the festival Bonderam was introduced wherein the national flags of different countries were taken in a procession around the comunidade boundaries. Mock fights with fotash (bamboo guns) also came into the picture. In 1984, the Piedade Youth Association took up the organisation of the festival and a float parade is now part of the celebrations.

Aguada Prisoners Turn Productive

The prisoners at Aguada jail are doing a constructive job. Under the guidance of some NGOs who are involved in environmental issues, the prisoners are making paper bags,  and the first batch of 5000 bags was distributed free to vendors at the Panjim market. Given that plastic is not bio-degradable, paper bags are most likely to be the future and the Aguada prisoners may have picked up a good business skill that they can put to use once released.

Books Released

The governor Mohammad Fazal released three books on various htmlects of Goan history penned by different historians at the Xavier Centre for Historical Research last month. The books – Goa-Kanara Portuguese Relations 1498-1736 by B S Shastry and edited by Charles J Borges, Goa’s Foremost Nationalist: Jose Inacio Candido de Loyola (the man and his writings) edited by Charles J Borges and Goa and Portugal: History and Development, edited by Charles J Borges, Oscar G Pereira and Hannes Stubbe – have been published by the XCHR. Present at the release was Fr Patrick D’Mello, the Jesuit provincial of the Goa province.