49TH MANDO FESTIVAL IN GOA.

                                                       One of the Teenager groups

Yesterday, on 10^th of this month, I attended the first day of the 49^th Mando Festival in Panjim  at Kala Academy Hall, starting at 5.20 PM though officially it was announced at 5.00 PM and attendees were requested to occupy their seats at 4.30 PM.  The organisers must stop committing such mistakes next time because it inconveniences the attendees.

 

 

One of the adults group

 

It was a pity to see hardly around 100 persons attending this day’s proceedings in a mighty hall having its capcity to accommodate around 1000 persons.  The reserved seats around 100 were almost totally empty. This poor attendance created a very gloomy future for Mando culture in Goa.  Since late sixties I have been attending Mando Festivals in Panjim but never ever I noticed such a poor attendance even though now it is free while earlier it was high priced tickets of Rs. 7.00 while for Tiato first class ticket was 2.50 rupees.

Baby Musicians.

 

 Earlier the attendance had class in themselves namely in their dress code mostly the males in Suit and Tie while ladies with rich costumes and in presentable manner.  It was a great honour to attend Mando Festivals during those good old days and the Mando Moguis were eagerly waiting to see this festival with great pride and pomp. All these things are now gone to the winds.

 

One of the senior groups

 

The first Mando Festival was organized somewhe in 1965 under the leadership of Bernardo Fernandes from Siolim and since 1974 it was organised under the banner of Goa Cultural and Social Centre.  This year total number of entries counted were 40 items and on the first day it was 20 but some abstained at the last minute reducing the number. But the quality of first day proceedings was very good especially in senior category.  I could easily say that it was as good as it was earlier.  The children category also performed well so too the teenager category.  The groups from Sarzora, Cansaulim and St. Xaviers College Mapusa stole the show on the first day while others too performed well.

 

Yet another senior group

 

On first day the participants took part in all categories namely Children, Teenagers, Senior Citizens, Adults and Dance category. All performed well in singing, music and dress code. Talking of Musical part, there was a total change from what it was earlier.  Before you could see only the male adults playing music but now you could see with pride females and young musicians playing Violin, Gumot and Guitar and that too with top excellence.

A beautifully dressed group

 

Among the 4 Compeers, only one Dr. Bikaji Ganekar was the senior most starting from first Mando Festival and still going strong without any flaw.   

 

Senior citizens group led by 72 year old lady

 

It was a pity to see in the audience mostly the elders while youngsters shown diminishing interest. This is a very disturbing trend for the future of Mando and its survival. The elders and the organsers must devise some methods to woo the youngsters to Mando culture.

 

 

 

 

 

A.Veronica Fernandes,

Candolim, Goa.

Tel:7507394349.

 

TIME TO STOP DONATIONS TO THE RICH CHURCH.

One of the reasons for the killing of the late Fr. Bismark Dias was, as given to understand, his opposition to the selling of Vanxim Island by the Bishop House at Altinho, Panjim,  to the big builders and also because he was opposing the big builders lobby. This Island as informed, was gifted to the Goa Church by a “Bom Samaritan” but the Goa Bishop took the liberty to sell it.  Hence,  the problem leading to the death of Fr. Bismark.

Likewise, many Catholics in Goa, years ago, gifted their land to the local village Churches as a source of maintenance but gradually the Pe. Vigars of these Churches started selling cheaply this land known as “Confraria Land” to our opponents and non-Goans, many times many Pe. Vigars pocketing the money for their personal luxuries. It was a pity that this land belonging to the Catholics was finally sold by the money greedy Church leaders to the enemies of Catholics.

In view of this, I feel it is better to stop gifting of any land or property to the Church in Goa.  By gifting our land and property to the Church we are tempting the Church leaders to become money crazy and because of this craze for big money they opt to sell this land to the highest bidder and to our own enemies.  What matters to the Church is nothing but Money and Big Money to lead a luxuriously sinful life against the teachings of Pope Francis.

Goa Church is one of the wealthiest organizations in Goa because its followers are gifting the Church with enormous amount of money every week thru Sunday Collections.  In my mediocre village itself, every week about 40 thousand rupees are collected and ultimately where this amount goes?  Nobody knows because concerned persons are not transparent on this. If this amount is properly utilized for the improvement and development of the local needy faithful, there would be brightness on every face of every faithful especially the downtrodden needing no begging for anything from anyone. This does not mean that we should not support Church maintenance but not exorbitantly to the extent the Church becomes arrogant with feudal mentality.

In Kuwait, we a few Indian Catholics joined together and collected from our own pockets certain amount instead of giving the same to the Sunday and Friday Collections in the Church.  This amount thus collected by us every month we gave to the needy and suffering domestics to alleviate their sufferings.  This we did because Kuwait Church to a certain extent is numbed to the sufferings of the persecuted domestics  inspite of the huge amount of collection it gets which finally goes where? Nobody knows. It looks Bishop is the whole and sole of this money.

Goa Church is still not doing the job of Bom Samaritan.  It has under its possession vast land which can be used to build small houses for the poor Goan Catholics who are unable to purchase land at high prevailing rate.  Similarly on this land Church can start some small scale business ventures to provide employment to the needy Catholics because Church is a big Landord in Goa having big wealth which should be utilized for the benefit of Catholics. It is high time now for the Goa Church to come to the rescue of Catholics by helping them in whatever way it can.  If Goa Church fails its Catholics in Goa then Goan Catholics will disappear from Goan soil because it is the mission of our enemies to extinguish Goan Catholics from Goan soil.

A.Veronica Fernandes,

Candolim, Goa.

Tel: 7507394349.

PHOTOS OF TIATRO BHOGOS MHAKA.