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Support growing the reading habit among Goa's next generation of achievers Bookworm Library and Magazine Bluebelle, Tamba Colony, St Inez, Goa Contacts: Tel: +91 9823222665 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Announcement GOA - AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT A Photo Exhibition by Rajan P. Parrikar Where: Institute Menezes Braganza (Art Gallery) Near Azad Maidan, Panjim, Goa When: November 1 - 6, 2007, from 9 am to 7 pm Admission: Free, and open to all A subset of the photographs I shot from June through September 2007 will be displayed. For over 45 days spread over these 4 months, my driver-assistant Babu Naik and I set out at 7 in the morning, returning home by around 6 in the evening. We also overnighted on a couple of occasions. The idea was not only to take photographs but also to soak in the Goan Experience, reacquaint myself with places, things and people I knew as a little boy. As I set out every morning there would be no predetermined plan. I would point to a direction randomly, and Babu would point our car duly. Our first order of business - a stop at a village cafe, one of the great pleasures of Goan life, for a breakfast of cha, mix bhaji with katryache pao (increasingly hard to find these days in Panjim), and sides of shiro, batatavado and sometimes kaapaam (sliced potato bhajis). Our village cafes deserve a separate dissertation. For much of the time the weather was gloriously monsoon-ey and, like it does at this time of the year, the Goan landscape had taken on a lush, verdant patina. It is also that time of the year when you can experience Goa like it used to be, unhindered and unmolested by the accursed swarm of tourists, white and brown. Goa being small, we would often turn up in the same zipcode more than once. And to underscore this smallness and the familiarity of life in Goa, there would be occasions when, for instance, on the ferry, someone would tap my shoulder and say, "Arrey, I saw you the other day at Cumbarjua" or "Last week weren't you in Malar?" Few, if any, have had the privilege as I did of indulging Goa in this manner. For most people have a living to make. This exercise in leisure inspired both a renewed awareness of the uniqueness of our tiny paradise, and a pang at the recent degeneration of Goa. I have been around the world a bit. There are more beautiful beaches than Goa elsewhere, there are more spectacular sights elsewhere. But nowhere will you find the socio-religio-cultural ecosystem combined so elegantly with the land itself as in Goa. On this ground alone we ought to demand special protection for Goa against the influx of outsiders gobbling up our land, uncouth Dilliwallahs viewing Goa only as sea-front real estate, and ghatis from all over India pouring into Goa, evacuating at will around our waterline, and erecting slums in their wake. In February this year I held the exhibition "Goa On The Brink." Its online version, "The Death Of Goa" has scored well over 1.5 million hits. The November exhibition is different in character. It portrays the sublimity of Goa. There is no overt socio-political message here. However, implicitly I hope to awaken the Goan to the treasures he has in his midst, which he has taken for granted for so long, and which he stands to lose if he allows matters to continue the way they are. The Goa on display here is not the Goa of the tourist brochures. Through this montage the "Goan Identity" - amorphous to put down in words but very easy to discern - will emerge naturally and with clarity. (I am often amused by those few boneheaded Goans who have doubts about who is and who is not a Goan. These morons have learnt to spell, but not to think.) The limitations of physical space will mean only a fraction of the material I have shot will be on the tableaux. But I expect to have a much larger, detailed gallery online soon - time, weather and wife permitting :-). Warm regards, r