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Showing posts with the label Sanjeev Sardesai

Discovering our Goan Heritage

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Sanjeev Sardesai is an unusual amalgamation of the educational qualifications of a botanist, the profession of a graphic designer and the passion of a historian. The latter has motivated him to start two groups called Hands on Historians and Sanscritic. In the year 2002, after working for nearly two decades in the hotel industry, Sanjeev gave up his position as a general manger. This was because he realised that tourism was virtually dead. ‘Today after thirteen years of leaving that industry, I still stand by my statement that there is no organised tourism in Goa,’ says Sanjeev, who believes that tourism is the urge of people to travel from one destination to another to discover the culture and heritage therein. So what could our state hold that stokes this desire?! Sanjeev decided he must find out for himself. There is tangible (visually perceived) and intangible (experienced) heritage. Hands on Historians is a forum focused on being a practical historian while Sanscritic (‘sans’ –

Marius Fernandes, Propagator of Goan Culture

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  In a time when we are struggling to recognise our roots as Goans and fighting to keep our identity from merging into a potpourri of cultures, we have some clarity in the form of the various cultural festivals that have been peppering the years since the beginning of the 2000s and will hopefully continue on through the years to come. We have one man to thank for this and that man is Marius Fernandes, now dubbed ‘ Goemcho Festamkar ’ for daring to leave a lucrative career behind and spend 17 years injecting goenkarponn into the goenkars (Goans) and their progeny. Marius was not born in Goa, but in Kenya in 1959, albeit arriving into a family that was firmly entrenched in Goan culture. Adventure seems to run in his veins since his grandfather Mathias Xavier Fernandes found himself in Kenya after spending the night on a dhow. He had been trying to escape the confines of strict convent education and had sought refuge in the dhow for a night’s rest only to find himself sailing to the con

The Flower of Goenkarponn (Abolianchem Fest)

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Abolianchem Fest , dedicated to the abolim flower, was celebrated by Nirmala Institute of Education as the institute’s annual Project Goa celebrations to showcase the socio-cultural aspects of Goan culture before 1975. This included music, games, songs, dances, food, art, craft, etc that is authentically Goan, so as to document and preserve these positive attributes of Goan culture for the benefit of present and future generations of Goans. The festival saw the revival of interest in the abolim , or firecracker flower, also known by its scientific name of Crossandra infundibuliformis . Although it was named the state flower in the early part of the 1970s, there has been a decline in the presence of the flower in most parts of Goa. The abolim flower has been an integral part of religious and cultural rituals in Goa for years, and its resurgence has been spearheaded by the  Abolianchem Fest . Nirmala Institute of Education, where the Abolianchem Fest was held, has been Goa’s foremost s