A Goanet Feature It's called Radio Mango, and has helped to plant the Konkani seed in North America. Running each Saturday evening for two hours, the radio is almost four years old and reaching its two hundredth show soon.
Radio Mango president producer and co-host Milena Marques-Zachariah, originally from Parra in Goa, is a creative director and has been a copywriter. "My entire script is first written in English, and then I translate it. It takes up a whole lot of my time, but still I so enjoy doing it," she said, speaking at a programme held at the Caravela cafe and bistro in Panjim on the weekend. Radio Mango started on September 29, 2012, in an unusual way. "I was doing my eyebrows at a salon, and heard a language on the radio. I asked the girl which language that was." It turned out to be Nepali, of whom there were about a thousand speakers in the city. "I sat up and said, 'A thousand? We are over 50,000 and our (Konkani) music repertoir is amazing. So I thought, why don't we start something." Her brother then told her about the Voice of Goa community radio station in Australia, where he's based. "Because I'm in the advertising business, it was not at all a problem to call the radio station. In three weeks of thinking about it, it was on air," she recalls. >From the very start, she thought of a radio programme that would not be restricted to Goans alone, or one section of them. This worked out; the Mangaloreans are a really loyal audience. The name comes from a combination of the Mangalorean and Goan term. Slowly it built up, the but the challenge was still to get the money. Punjabis are a larger community, and make up about 200,000 members. So the multicultural budgets go to groups like the Punjabis, while the Konkani-speakers are rather invisible, with just 3000 mentioning their language as Konkani. The four initial partners then put in $500 each, and they managed to get some advertisers. But the advertisers felt they were not getting enough business. The idea however was to create a platform for the community. "We are so small, and all of us are new immigants. There's no way they could find a platform." Milena hopes that Radio Mango itself grows into the platform. "People with talent, people who've done community work, tiatrists, anything related to Konkani, they can come and talk about it on radio. We also thought of making it available through a website [http://radiomango.ca] We're listented to in Dubai, Australia, London, Mangalore," she adds. To keep their interaction, they keep the show live. It goes on air every Saturday. "We started with one hour and today have two hours (a week)," says she. The programme starts with an interview of someone from the community, even someone who has triumphed over little struggles. "We start by just chatting about what happened during that week. Then we play a Goan song, another small chat, and then a Mangalorean song," she explains. Their second segment includes an interview. The last person we interviewed was an Archbishop of Lahore, of Mangalorean-Goan origin. Goan news is read by Matilda and it gets the Mangalore news from Gerry D'Mello. They have one nostalgia segment called 'Kennai Maka Ugdas Yeta', which talks about the past in Goa with many expats, specially elders, yearn for. There's another slot called 'Kennai Hanv Bezar Zata', about things that bring our frustrations to the fore. The last segment is a contest. Somewhere in between, there's also a recipe section, and a slice of life depiction called 'bhadkann boslea bolcaon'. Other popular segments include ones on poetry, a 'let's learn Konkani' slot and the like. Radio Mango is now in its 180th show. "How to keep this afloat is a "constant challenge", says Marques-Zachariah. They pay Can$1000 per month for two hours of broadcast time each week, or 12,000 Canadian dollars in a year. No support comes from the government. A little is earned from advertisers. The first year, they organised a dance which helped them raise Can$15,000. They brought in Henry (of Katharina fame) and Lorna in the next year. "That means, I do not make a single penny," says Marques-Zachariah. "Even my cost of going to Mississauga to Toronto comes from my pocket," says she, saying she has to think of "something new" to sustain this idea which many appreciate. In September the show will turn four. "We're coming up to the 200th show. Each milestone seems like a big success because it's an uphill task. But we're getting there," she adds. The station is Rexdale, located north-west of the central core, in the former suburb of Etobicoke. "We're slowly taking back our pride. We're slowly taking back our language," says Marques-Zachariah, glad that the work is getting noticed even back at home in Goa. Email mil...@radiomango.ca ###