Prutha Goa

There is a new trend in the literary world in Goa: one that promises to set your foot tapping while listening to engrossing tales. That’s right – we are to be entertained by musical book readings. The author of Fair-Weather Brother , Pogoat, has already dipped his toes into this new experience at 6 Assagao with much success. Pogoat tells us that combining music with book readings is not an invention of the 21st century, beginning somewhere in the 1950s with great credit to the efforts of Jack Kerouac, American novelist, poet, and leader of the Beat Generation literary movement. Pogoat says, ‘Book readings with music go back a very long way, back into the 1950’s when the blues and jazz scene began to explode in America and the beat writers mixed it all up with prose and poetry. But the writer who took the art of musical reading to the mainstream media was Jack Kerouac. Jack claimed to know jazz more than any other writer, and his book readings with jazz music were culture defining momen

6 Assagao appeared on the scene in Goa three and a half years ago as a confluence of art, intellect and social activism. Nilankur Das, who is part of the team that makes the events at 6 Assagao a reality, reflects on a social awakening birthed by the turbulent atmosphere of Assam in the '80s. Marked by political unrest, student agitation, secessionist movements, the Indian Army’s combing operations and the President’s rule, this time period shaped his motivation to work in the development sector, and later in outreach and communication programmes. People Tree, which was founded by Orijit Sen and Gurpreet Sidhu and functions as a space for products of unique design, began as an alternative bookshop in Delhi housing textile products and accessories. Far more than an ordinary store, People Tree boasts of having been the nurturing ground for social movements and the mentor of 6 Assagao. Nilankur says of People Tree, where he once used to have his activism T-shirts on display, ‘People T