This week: the 48 Mando festival in Goa, yesterday and today A. Veronica Fernandes Candolim. Goa M +91-7507394349 averonicaf...@hotmail.com
The first day of the 48th edition of Manddo Festival was held yesterday on Thursday, Dec 11, 2014 Kala Academy, Panjim, starting at 5.20 pm. This event is organised annually by the Goa Cultural and Social Centre in collaboration with the Department of Arts and Culture and the Kala Academy, Goa. Today evening, Friday Dec 12, will see the concluding round of this year's mando festival. The total number of manddes staged by different groups from across Goa yesterday was 19 and this programme lasted almost four long hours. Proceedings were compered by Dr Bikaji Ghanekar, Agnel de Borim, Ms Nifa de Silva and Ms Shakeela Shaikh. Interestingly, Dr Bikaji Ghanekar has been compering this event ever since the inception year of the Manddo Festival 48 years back. He is still going strong even if moving on in years; his other three colleagues also brought extra colours to this function. Thursday's proceedings were divided into the Children Category, Teenagers, Adults and Senior Citizens. Groups that participated were from Carmona, Porvorim, Velim, Chinchinim, Cortalim, Mapusa, Taleigao, Aquem, St. Xaviers College (Mapusa), Verna, Little Flower of Jesus School Calangute and Siolim. The Siolim Manddo was among the best yesterday and Jovencio Carvalho the lead singer sang extremely well. He is the son of legendary Siolim musician the late Joaozinho Carvalho who was the leader of the then famous Goan band, Johnson and His Jolly Boys. Joaozinho also played the violin for noted mando groups like Congottchim Lahram and Candolimchim Kirna and many a time received the first prizes for his beautiful musical score. Siolim incidentally has earned the unique distinction of producing many great musicians of Goa including the great late Anthony D'Souza. Siolim was also the home of one the greatest Mandoists of Goa, the late Cruz Noronha whose Manddos are priceless now. Among the youngsters (children's category), Little Flower students of Calangute performed well to maintain the high tradition laid down by the then Congottchim Lahram under the leadership of the late great Manddo promoter Fausto Andrade, who had in his group the majestic singer and Mandoist, late Souza Giao. The dance category Manddo performed by the Aquem group deserves compliments for dishing out a wonderful performance. Costume-wise, yesterday's performers maintained the rich tradition of Manddo Festivals but performance-wise the quality was nowhere near what it used to be like in 1960s and 1970s, though every group gave its best in an attempt to maintain the high standard. Attendance-wise, the response was not encouraging as it was in earlier days when one could not see a single empty chair in the hall. It was very heartening however to see lady participants, mainly youngsters, playing musical instruments like the violin and the guitar, with a lot of enthusiasm. Chief Minister Parsekar was the chief guest, while his cabinet colleague Nilesh Cabral was the guest of honour. In his brief speech the Chief Minister applauded the tremendous efforts put in by the organizers to organize this festival and assured his government's assistance in future including possibly by way of finding an office for the mando organisers. -- View pictures of this event online at http://www.goa-kranti.blogspot.in/2014/12/48th-maddo-festival-in-goa.html