Prutha Goa

She arrived a little late, apologising at every opportunity. Cielda Pereira at my first meeting with her was far from my expectations of a famous singer; a demure, modest and down-to-earth person, so simple in her approach to life. One would have expected a few airs thrown about following the stupendous success of the Konkani film Nachom-ia Kumpasar , but there was to be none of that. Cielda’s earliest memory of singing is at the age of three in school, rendering 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean'. From then on she always found herself participating in some sort of singing activity or the other be it the mando, patriotic songs, group or solo singing. A student of Chowgule College, she competed in Voice of Chowgule’s without success at her first attempt. However, her participation in the next three years saw her take the title every single time. ‘Everybody knows me for Nachom-ia Kumpasar , but I had already participated in Kingfisher Voice of Goa (2013) before that,’ says the secon

When something precious is taken away from you, Divine Providence enables compensation of significant magnitude. However, it takes a resilient spirit to recognise and embrace this ‘gift’ in the throes of adversity. For Jolene Dias, her life could have fallen apart when she was confronted with a seemingly insurmountable catastrophe, but for the support of her mother and her reliance on the power of God. Jolene began life as normal as any human could relatively be. At the age of fourteen she was dealt a devastating blow: she was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Before this she was an avid sportsperson, participating in football, tennikoit, badminton. She was learning Bharatanatyam too. It was a shock to her parents who had seen her as an active child. ‘Who would expect a person who was into sports and dancing to be handicapped at a later stage?’ says Jolene, who also suffers from ADHD. She is very demanding of love and attention from her family, friends and others, because of her condi