We are well into the Christian season of Lent, the approximately 40 day period of general abstinence for the faithful ostensibly to emulate the 40-day period that Christ fasted leading to his eventual death by crucifixion.
However, people indulge in the tradition of fun, frolic, eat, drink and be merry over 3-4 days preceding 'Ash Wednesday' which is the start of the Lenten season across the globe with Brazil being the most extravagant and famous. Goa and its people too has been known to celebrate this tradition for well over half a century, perhaps influenced by the rule from Portugal, the colonial power that also reigned over Brazil.
This year was no exception. Goa did celebrate the festival with float parades lorded over by the Tourism Department held in the top cities. But rather than the fun, frolic, eat, drink and be merry theme, it turned out to be an insipid affair, more of a Carni-bore rather than a Carnival.
In the capital city, the float parade is usually the largest and grandest among all other Goan cities. But last Saturday, it kind of hit the nadir.
For starters, the start of the parade was delayed beyond a couple of hours and the gaps between successive floats were never-ending -- nearly half-an-hour between the first few floats and the next one.
Perhaps, the only saving grace for the Carnival this year was the fare dished out at the Samba square and some of the festivities organised in the villages, particularly Salcete.
There are lessons to be learnt even if it was a bore. Whether they will be learnt by the honchos at the Tourism Department so we have a better Carnival in 2025, is the million dollar question though.
Seafood festival: another blow
The cup of woes for the tourism department seems to be overflowing. In the midst of its involvement in organising the Carnival came a huge hurdle -- a challenge to its plan to hold and revive the 'Seafood Festival' on the original sands of Miramar Beach.
A bunch of dozen or so citizens from Panaji sued the Tourism department for deciding to hold the Seafood festival on the beach in contravention of its own policy and past judicial orders.
Planning to host the festival complete, the department however came a cropper before the judges of the Bombay High Court at Goa. Having no option, it eventually agreed to defer the festival.
BJP's tribal trio in a cock-fight?
When you are top-heavy like the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in Goa, what with the other Opposition parties all but decimated with its brute majority thanks to the mass defection of eight Congress MLAs, the trouble within is bound to follow -- the cock-fight between Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar and Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude, the first of its symptoms.
Developments over the last week sparked off by the scathing graft allegations made by Tawadkar against the minister, are indicative of a war within even if the BJP State president and Rajya Sabha MP, Sadanand Shet Tanavade, terms it a 'family matter' which has been resolved, what with the perceived truce he and .Chief Minister Pramod Sawant eked out in a closed-door meeting with the two tribal leaders hardly lasting a few hours.
The trading of barbs and charges continued and the saffron camp's third tribal leader -- Prakash Velip -- joined the melee albeit on the side of Gaude who he said was being 'targeted'. A multiple term legislator himself who held the posts of cabinet minister and Deputy Speaker as well, Velip questioned the selective inquiry in the Art & Culture department when the government is being accused of splurging hundreds of crores on an event-holding spree across dozens of departments.
Not one to take the punch lying down, Tawadkar, unilaterally and suo-motu took Velip's utterances to amount to hurting the dignity of the Speaker's office, arguing that the remarks were made when the House was in session and summoned him for a 'Contempt of House' proceeding. The development forced Sawant to step in and eke out yet another truce, this time between Tawardkar and Velip.
Elsewhere in the political grapevine, meanwhile, there's talk that the no-holds-barred slugfest among the saffron camp's Tawadkar-Gaude-Velip trio, is an orchestrated public spat to dock Gaude for two reasons: one is to deflect the attention that the 'Mission Political Reservation' movement was getting and second is to ease him out of the Cabinet a la Nilesh Cabral way so that the man waiting in the wings -- Digambar Kamat -- can be rehabilitated.
Let's wait and see, when it happens, if it happens!
