WORLD GOA DAY HAS COME TO STAY by Basilio Magno (Spain)
The World Goa Day celebrations going in its sixth year on 20 August 2005 is a social triumph for the Goan cummunities the world over. It is a phenomenal event born out of nothing, just few e-mail epistles by its founder, UK based Rene Barreto, blasted on all Goan nets the unmistakable message of the virtues of Goan unity and the love of Mother Goa. This had mesmerized all the presidents of the Goan Associations to fall in line with his call in the year 2000, and year by year their number has grown abundantly. Last week the Goan Association Gemany joined in for the first time and celebrated the Day with a Konkani Music Show by artistes from Goa. Rene's noble idea would have died a natural death had it not been for the internet collaboration of Goanet.org, Goa-Goans, Goa-world, etc, which helped to propagate the idea to Goans in every corner of the world. His leadership instinct told him that he would need a theme-song or an anthem for the event. Having had known that I had composed a song for Princess Diana and the King of Spain, Rene thought of me and e-mailed to me a request to compose "a piece similar to the one you composed for Lady Diana." As there was nothing else to go by in the maiden year, my song "Proud to be a Goan" took the centre stage. It had become a hit having been hosted on Goa- world.com website, sung by me accompanied by a Spanish band. Thanks to Mario Fernandes of Goan International, who combined the celebration of Goa Day with the Bonderam festival at Sao Mathias island, Divar, premiering "Proud to be a Goa", all Goa newspapers carried the story and printed the lyrics of the song. The o HERALD o daily had splashed on its front page the story by Francis X. Ribeiro on 20 August 2000: GOANS TO OBSERVE 'GOA DAY' AROUND THE WORLD TODAY. THEME SONG PROUD TO BE A GOAN TO BE PREMIERED AT BONDERAM. and followed up: Goans all around the globe will be observing August 20 as Goa Day, an idea conceived by Rene Barreto of Goan International who is based in London, with the objective of bringing together Goans form different parts of the world. To mark the Goa Day, celebrations will be held from Kenya to Maryland (USA), London to Bahamas and Harare to Goa at the Sao Mathias island, Divar. To make this a memorable day, a special song (end of this story) has been composed by famed Goan songwriter Basilio Magno, residing in Spain. Basilio who is still recovering from his long illness, was determined to produce something worthwhile. Within a week after being requested by Rene, this former "Irving Berlin of India" came out with the theme song for Goa Day, titled "Proud to be a Goan", a theme he always wanted to propagate to the younger generation, who very often are shy to say, 'I am a Goan'. Within these six years Goa Day has rightly changed to World Goa Day, and has come a long way in popularity. We may say World Goa Day has come to stay, it being fixed in the Goan psyche, and there is no fear of losing the date. However in his farsightedness Rene has established this year Alliance of World Organisations and has entrusted it to a successful organiser in Canada -Oscar Furtado. Rene has always been a lover of Goa. Some years ago he had oganised Goan Jamboree, taking a large number of Goans from London for a picnic in Goa. Not long ago he founded the Goan Musical Society in London, of which he is the founder/president. Musically it is carried on by Joao Paulo Cota, which is doing great job in projecting Goa's musical image in Britain. The name of Rene will go down in the annals of Goan social history as the man who singlehandedly unified the Goan communities the world over and has inspired them to work for the upliftment of Goa and the Konkani language. Others may now also claim to have dreamed of the idea but Rene with hard work and organizing ability has made it the Goan reality. And that is the fact we cherish. My message for the World Goa Day 2005 is that we Goans should shed our colonial complex be it Portuguese of British and proudly start speaking in Konkani with each other at home and at Goan functions. Let's not forget that a community without a language of its own becomes a pariah community. The Goans have a very rich language and the only Indian language written in Roman script. It is our special heritage. A move is afoot spearheaded by the Dalgado Konkani Academy presided by the former MLA Tomazinho Cardoso to seek recognition for the Roman script for Konkani along with the Devnagiri script. Let's collaborate in the letter campaign and make it the theme of WGD 2005, making everyone conscious of the need of Roman script not only for Konkani but for all Indian languages to face the challenges of the cyber age we live in. The song "Proud to be a Goan" can be downloaded from the website www.goaday.com Its copyright has been gifted to Rene and World Goa Day. The new version: "I'm Proud to be Goan" has not yet been hosted on the website.