I had a ringside view of the Goa Arts and Literary Festival or GALF this year as a delegate, and so I got to see lots of delightful idiotic posturings which many others would not be so lucky to observe. I will try to fill you in with some of the gems that you have missed.
On 14 December 2012 the program was at Raj Bhavan on a makeshift stage with the sun setting on the Arabian Sea as background. This was supposed to start at 5.30 pm. This was a fine, nay magnificent idea, except that nobody thought of checking to see at what time the sun sets at Raj Bhavan. If they had done this they would have realised that the sun set at 6.30 pm and if one had a program before that then it would simply have been impossible to look at it because of the harsh sun in the background. So the program started at 6.30 a full one hour late. The poet Manohar Shetty was supposed to have had his latest volume of poetry 'Body Language' released at the hands of the Governor H E Bharat Vir Wanchoo. The program for the day says so: http://goaartlitfest.com/galf2012/programme2012.pdf. This was abruptly cancelled without so much as an 'if you please'. However Shetty was allowed to recite his poems. The insulted poetanu came on stage and looking Governor Wanchoo in the eye said, 'This has not been released and I don't know if this is ever going to be released but.." and he sadly dangled a copy of his poems before the audience. Then he began to read some bitterly sarcastic poems about Goa (but they could be about anywhere else) to the bemused audience. Incidentally the differently-abled poet Salil Chaturvedi who was also to have read his poems was told that he would not be able to do this on stage, as carrying his wheelchair on stage would have taken a lot of time. However he was allowed only when his wife raised a ruckus and his wheelchair was hauled on stage at the last moment. Incidentally there was no excuse, no explanation and certainly no apology for the totally high-handed and crass behavior of the organizers. Augusto Pinto -- o Augusto Pinto 40, Novo Portugal Moira, Bardez Goa, India E [email protected] P 0832-2470336 M 9881126350
