MONDAY MUSE (17 May 2010) SANDWICH GENERATION
Upon completing his training in restoration and conservation, Victor Hugo Gomes returned to Goa to take charge as curator of the Musuem of Christian Art at the Seminary of Rachol. His research made him realise that years of accumulated wisdom in agrarian practices, traditional implements, tools, arts, crafts and the valuable artefacts in and around the state, was being neglected or left to decay. Victor went on to embark on an arduous and remarkable journey of visiting and collecting items of Goa’s rich cultural heritage. His ethnographical Goa Chitra museum is not just a fantastic collection of ancient artefacts. Adjacent to the museum is a 3-acre field that has been created using traditional organic farming methods and allows visitors to actually use some of the implements on display within. It all began for Victor with an awareness of being part of a sandwich generation. A sandwich generation is the crucial link between major transitions in society. It stands on the threshold of time, as an increasing dependence on technology and mass manufactured products push out time-honoured tools and practices. The real loss, as Victor says, is about losing evidence of the sustainable lifestyles of our forefathers. Victor and his wife Aldina, inspire us to be better at carrying on the legacy of long-established wisdom and practices. It is up to us in the sandwich generation to ensure that the collective wisdom of sustainable living, acquired over the ages, is not lost to the future generations due to wrong choices in our lifestyles. If cannot add, may we at least maintain the worthy legacy of forefathers and pass it on to the next generation. It will BE BETTER if the sandwich generation… Will make the connect with sustainable action! - Pravin K. Sabnis Check out http://www.goachitra.com
