WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF OUR TIATROS?

_{There is a deep concern among the Tiatrologists and in the Tiatro cirlce that Tiatro will suffer a deep scar due to the heavy damage it suffered in its promotion due to the Tiatro and Tiatrists undergoing these days the terrible effects of Lockdown because of Corona Virus.  Very many of our Tatrists are living like a daily wagers, “work today and get your remuneration to day and spend it to feed  you”.  Since this is the case, these Tiatrists will undergo lot of difficulties in the life of their survival.  This is one aspect of their life affecting their sustenance.}

_{The second aspect will be the diminishing quality of their Tiatros because by being out of this profession for another approximately one year because Corona Virus effect will not die down fully, people in Goa will have to maintain to keep the distance between every two persons which will not be convenient for the audience in the Tiatro Hall. Since it will take a long time for the complete eradication of Coronato Virus, the audience will be afraid to attend to the Tiatros for the fear of acquiring the invissible particles of Corona Virus. If  you observe the whole scenario of this subject, everybody involved in this Tiatros business will be in a dilemma.  Hence, Tiatro will suffer a big set-back and as such it will go back atleast to 50 to 75 years.  And who will raise its standard again to the level of the 23rd March 2020?}

_{This is not going to be the first such incident where Tiatro  suffered a set- back. Earlier,   25 – 30 years after the first Tiatro was staged in Bombay, Tiatro suffered a heavy set back because decent people stopped patronizing Tiatros because of its very low quality displayed in the form of vulgarity and “Zupattis”.  Suddenly, from nowhere the then young genius the late Minguel Rod appeared on the Konkani Stage and thru his very high intellectual Tiatros beautified with excellent cantos and beautiful songs the revival of Tiatro was brought.  The audience from the elite and educated class of Goans including the Portuguese educated “Bhattkar” and high caste Cristian and Hindu “Bamonn” started patronizing our Tiatros. Those few who are still alive and who have seen the Tiatros of Minguel Rod namely “Bapul Bhau, Ghorchem Kestaum, Ghorib Sezari, Goenkar Munddkar Beltod, Lemddo Santan, Open to Close etc." I am sure they will give the testimony of the genuineness of what I wrote here. In order to have a Minguel Rodan type of revolution in our Tiatros we must pray to God to send in our midst a Messiah type of Tiatrist to stage absolutely high standard Tiatros to which the audience will automatically get magnetized and who will not be afraid of any Virus.}

_{Now, the ball is in the court of Tiatrists to revive the interest of Tiatros into the minds of our audience.  Initially in the beginning audience will be afraid, to remove this fear of their minds and hearts, the Tiatrists mainly the top few “Lokhpriya” Playwrights and directors must have a round table type of conference among them and select thru consensus one  genuine director who is the most sought after director by the audiene and put the ball into his court to stage his first Tiatro after the Lockdown and thru this experiment everyone will come to know what is the actual status of  the revival of our Tiatros.  Any L:adru-Pedru type of director will not move the mountain -  audience – to watch the  first Tiatro, only the top celebrity type of director will be able to wake up the dormant audience. One whole round should be allocated to this director to stage his Tiatro all over Goa. Then the second best known director should be pushed to stage his Tiatro in a similar manner and then the third director and so on.  Let every director be allotted one month to complete staging his tiatro. In 4-6 month time you will do the assessment of the interest in audience and also of Corona Virus.  Once you feel everything is settled down in the right direction and the situation is returned to the previous normalcy, then let every director and every Tiatrist use own decision to play his role.}

SEAFARERS' WOES & GOVERMENT'S LETHARGY.

Thank God finally thru His mercy alone our Seafarers stranded in the  seas disembarked in Bombay and  after the necessary period  required in       quarentine, they will be back soon in the arms of their loved ones and dearest and also with the nearest. Other than God, nobody should be given the credit for their safely disembarkation in Bombay, not even the CM Sawant nor his BJP and neither the Central  government should take cheap credit for the success of Seafarers operation.  If the BJP at Center and in Goa and Sawant ministry in Goa had genuine feelings and clear intention to help these Seafarers then they would all join together and put in their combined efforts to bring them back to Goa in the beginning itself but no, they wanted to ignore their issue may  be because they are almost all Christians because Christians looked neglected by the governing governments. However, if this issue took a serious turn then it was only because of  the nearest and dearest of Seafarers who made a big noise even by undertaking a hunger strike thereby shaking the credibility of the Sawant Government and backed by the total support of the Goans to fight for the cause of Seafarers instead of receiving the time consuming promises by Sawant.  Seafarers association too played a good  role in support of Seafarers demand.

Nobody among Seafarers not even their relatives should adore BJP and Sawant ministry and as a mark of gratitude they should not vote  for the BJP but instead they should oppose the BJP for not rendering  timely assistance to  them.  What BJP has done for these Seafarers was nothing but their duty and to do this type of duty they were elected by the people.  However, BJP in keeping in tune with their rubbish discipline, robbed the Goans of their right to have the Congress government formed its ministry and instead inspite of being in minority seat tally in the last election formed their own government by committing a “Chori” on Congress. If BJP was a good party then they would never initiate the defection and allow the defected MLA’s into their side by form their government.

In my locality recently the main road was repaired, hot-mix tarred and it looks better now.  But we should not think that the MLA concerned should be adored for doing this job,  there is no favour in doing this job, it is only his duty the concerned MLA has done and nothing else. He is elected to be the  MLA  to do his duties which are nothing but his obligations and there is no favour in it.

BJP is claiming to be the service to the public oriented party and it is the only party in India that is having the mass base where the rulers of the government identifies themselves with the commoners.  My foot, you “fotting” traitors of BJP.  You are liars and crook because of this you don’t identify yourselves practically with the commoners.  The  difference between your living standard and that of the masses and commoners was too high and it cannot be  like narrowed down because the top brass of BJP and any other party will not be comfortable to surrender even an inch in favour of the commoners.  

The  way the Ministers living in Goa for example at Altinho Panjim Government Bungalows it looks to me that one more class of people are developed In our midst that is the class of super Goans belonging to the ministerial category.  They are so powerful that they can at any moment turn into Salazar.  Because of the unimaginable facilities they are getting by being the ministers they turn out to be proud and arrogant.  Can anyone living this standard if he wants to prove his simplicity of the  common man that he was born and brought up, surrender his luxuries and live a common man’s life?  Cant he live in his own house instead of living in Altinho and instead spend the tax payers money for any good cause?  The standard of their living now is that of British Monarchy.  Inspite of driving away the British we are still ADORING their living standard that means we must be real traitors. Such traitors will never think good of the common people and common people will never come up as they will remain there only to vote the traitors.

A.Veronica Fernandes.   

SUPPORT FINANCIALLY TIATRISTS FOR THEIR LOSSES.

In Goa Tiatro is one of the industries catering to the needs of huge number of people as evidenced from the enormous  number of audience  attending to almost every Show of Tiatro almost in every major hall in every major locality namely Panjim, Margao, Vasco, Mapusa etc.  Besides the Tiatros are regularly staged in the villages also mainly in aid of some local good causes where the local Church leaders are doing wonderful job in letting their Church Halls to organize these Tiatros. 

This industry of Tiatro is manned by a large number of artistes, organisers, backstage helpers, stage setters, musicians and many others numbering to thousands of Goans coming not only from the Christian community but also from Hindu and Muslim communities as well though the number of Christian community is larger not only on the Stage but also in hall as attendees. As a matter of interest  though Hindus comprised a minuscule number yet since its inception on 17.04.1892 the few members of this community as artistes played a wonderful role in the promotion of our Tiatros.  Who can ever forget the superlative contribution in it of Kamat de Assolna, Shalini Maddolcar and that of Alexinho de Candolim being the first director to induct them namely Roglo, Kanta Divkar and Kamal besides the current shining stars Pradeep and Tari?

Now because of the severe jolt received due to Corona Virus, government is giving financial doles to people involved in fragile industries. Tiatro as an industry is also affected and as such government must also consider their case sympathetically. Some of the Tiatrists are directly dependent on Tiatros only and their financial condition must have suffered a big shock. What about their families and dependents?  The ministers and MLA's especailly from the BJP must impress upon the CM to consider the case of Tiatrists sympathetically.

A.Veronica Fernandes,