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Bethlehem beneath the debris

December 24, 2023

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Altar at Holy Cross church, Kurla

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Konkani Poetry

Yesterday I gave a PPT on the topic 'Glimpses of Contemporary Goan Poetry in English and Konkani' for students of a college. The request was made by a student of mine who I had taught around 20 years back in the college I am teaching in now. She still remembers, she said as she introduced me, me teaching Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey' in class. I tried to remember but the memories escaped me. There were a goodly number of students, around 40, who took time off from their hectic 'Fun Week' which seems to be the rage these days, to hear a poet read his lines. The deafening music outside the lecture hall soon mellowed into the cadence of poetry. For me this was a learning experience since I had never handled Goan poetry in Konkani and English on the same platform. But I realize that using Konkani, can have many benefits to leverage English in L2 classrooms. True enough, the students which were mostly from the Konkani department (The talk was jointly o...

Meera

On Sunday evening I saw 'Meera' the dance drama staged by Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra for their annual Summer ballet festival in the capital (New Delhi). The swirl of skirts and the costumes of Rajasthan and Gujarat still inundates my senses. The superb performance of 'Meera' looking ever so erotic in her long Rossetti-like hair and white ghagra-choli exposing her taut midriff, made it easier to understand why the Rajputs so feared female sexuality amongst the clan. The early-16th century mystic poetess threw the royal house of Mewar - in which she was married into - in disarray, to pursue her devotion to Krishna. Marriage and the family did not bind her and as a local saying goes, for those who will listen, though she left behind neither a son nor disciples, her name lives on through her life-events: Nam rahega kam son / Suno sayane loye / Mira sut jayo nahin / Shishya na mudo koye. Of course, for the story from Meera's husband's point of view, one has simply ...

Chuddo

Goan Weddding Customs - Chuddo by Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas As in other parts of Bardez, April-May is the month of feasts and weddings in Saligao. I will dwell to-day on the bangle-wearing ceremony among Christians and Hindus. The custom in olden times in Saligao demanded that the girl wear the best bangles possible from the usual bangle-seller in the native village known as " "Voar"(volar) or " Kankonkar" with a choice of her favourite colours. But a special bangle-wearing ceremony that is held only once in her life time for the bride is called CHUDDO. The bangle symbolises married life for the bride, as they are broken only on her dead husband's coffin. This " Chuddo" among some Saligao Christians consists of a set of fifteen glass bangles of green, brown and yellow colours on each wrist. These are specially in some villages of Bardez. In Moira it is 13 or 15 bangles and the colour is the same as in Saligao. Among others, the...

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