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Showing posts with the label Heta Pandit

Kaavi Art: Goa’s Gift to the World

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Kaavi art is slowly going to become a note in history if it is not revived and promoted. This is the message Heta Pandit, heritage activist and author of books such as Houses of Goa (co-authored with architect Annabel Mascarenhas) and Dust and Other Short Stories from Goa , geared up to send across to the audience gathered at Gallery Gitanjali, Panaji. Ms Pandit says, ‘I first saw kaavi at the Deshprabhu house in 1998. I was on a Homi Bhabha Fellowship and I went to the Deshprabhu house…It fascinated me then and it fascinates me now.’ A unique art form that originated in Goa, kaavi was Goa’s gift to Maharashtra and Karnataka. This art form possesses the wisdom of ages in that it has survived the rigours of weather, time and other deleterious factors. Showing the audience a visual description of an ordinary Goan house (the Boraskar house in Poinguinim), Ms Pandit explained that while some houses will have external embellishments of decoration on windows, the dogs, lions, soldiers seen

Oviyos: The Tales of Women at Their Grinding Stones

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Heta Pandit reproduces poignant tales connected with the process of using a grinding stone, still alive in many a Goan village. As these village women grind away, they sing songs that tell stories. Since this is usually a solitary job, the ladies have only these songs to make light their work.  Heta, a heritage conservationist and writer, says, ‘Welcome to the world of songs from Goa. Songs that are not sung in any pub, club or café, but songs that are sung in people’s homes, kitchens and backyards.’ These are songs that are composed entirely by Goan women and were collected over the course of a year and a half. These are not new songs. They have been a part of Goa’s culture for eons. Discovering this sub-culture in a land that has been ruled by the different dynasties such as the Kadambas, the Adil Shahs of Bijapur, the Portuguese and so on, aside from being culturally and historically influenced by the empires with whom Goa had trade relations and travellers of other regions; has bee