* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Mario Miranda Festival, July 24-26, 2008 Old GMC Building, Panjim. June 24, 4.30 pm Children's Day (with Bookworm). June 25, 5 pm Mario's medium analyzed. Short films on Mario. Featuring the first public appearance in Goa by Amruta Patil, graphic novelist and Goa Art College graduate. Her recent graphic novel, 'Kari' (Harper Collins) earned wide acclaim. July 26, original play by the Mustard Seeds Arts Company (5pm)
* * * 2008 Goan International convention currently on at Mississauga University of Toronto (UTM), July 23-27, 2008. http://2008goanconvention.com/index.php * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The traffic in Goa is apparently unmanageable. Pedestrian traffic accounts for a lot of this factor. Watch the pedestrians boarding the ferry at any one of the ferry points and you have a picture of utter chaos. People jay walk with utter abandon. Cars are haphazardly parked or parked in no parking zones. Two wheelers happily chug down no entry lanes or in pedestrian areas like markets - Just visit Mapusa Market. Roadside garages, shops operating on the roads, banks fencing off the pavement in front of their ATMs thus forcing the pedestrians on the roads, food carts, flower pot sellers, shops and godowns operating from parked vehicles, this is the flavour of traffic in Goa To my mind, people in Goa are very reluctant to learn and obey traffic rules. During my stint as Head of School, we tried a variety of ways to teach children basic traffic rules. Some of the rules we emphasized were (not an exhaustive list) *Look right-left-right before you cross the road *Cross the road at right angles to the road (The shortest crossing point) * Cross the road at zebra crossings * Walk on the right side of the road * Walk in singles or two at the most and not to bunch on the road, etc We used formal methods and informal methods. The informal methods consisted of skits on days of National importance (26/1, 15/8, 19/12) and during our concerts. We also had a rule printed as the footer of each page in the school diary. This was then written on the classroom black board and kept there for the duration of the week/fortnight that the page was valid. At the Saturday assembly, we read out the week's accident casualties and fatalities gleaned from the newspapers, in an attempt to shock pupils into learning to be disciplined on the road and to obey traffic rules. It is very sad that these lessons were forgotten as soon as the last bell rang. Transgressions of the last two rules above were evident immediately after school and no measures seemed to have worked to correct the children. The rule 'keep left' which is meant for traffic is so firmly entrenched in the people's minds, that they seem to think it applies to pedestrians too! Students firmly believe so even after we tried to make them shed this idea by having a police officer tell them. Alas, only in vain. Another thing that shocks me is that parents wittingly or unwittingly endanger their children while walking on the road. I have stopped my car/ scooter and told parents to walk with their children on the inner side of the road and not expose them to the danger of being hit by vehicles. So people will never learn . Immediately post liberation, during the hangover of the Portuguese rule, when some rules were still being followed the order for boarding ferries was four wheelers -->two wheelers-->pedestrians and disembarkation in reverse order. No driver could sit in the vehicle during the crossing. And there were ferries every where so chaos at ferry points would have a cascading effect all over Goa. Everything was disciplined. But I suppose the majority of people today think in democratic terms and try to be equal in all respects and treat vehicles and pedestrians on equal footing even when boarding ferries. This story emanated after a discussion on traffic chaos on Moira Net. Bye for now Tony -- Tony de Sa Ph: +91 832 2470148 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] M: +91 9975 162 897 ----------------------------------------------------------- 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing' Edmund Burke. ------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- **** http://www.GOANET.org **** --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tri Continental Film Festival 2008 July 25 - 30, 2008 Goa, India http://www.moviesgoa.org/page/tri_continental/ http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricon/schedule_2008.pdf ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
