#TGLife
Step in the colourful campus of Nirmala Institute of Education at Altinho to experience the feel of Goa “ as the smell of the Goan food enters the nostrils and the beats of the state musical instrument ghumat make you tap your foot. Witnessing little less than 1000 footfalls of students, parents, faculty and even neighbours, all of who are engaged in some or the other task, the decorated campus offers a red-carpet welcome to visitors and onlookers, serving hot meals free. Girls neatly draped in local Kunbi weave sarees, wearing Abolianchem faati, 95 per cent of them playing ghumat and singing songs in Konkani “ all merit attention amidst a host of other programmes such as plays, performances, exhibitions, posters, project displays and plant saplings.
“We are celebrating Goa Day, our annual get-together, naming it Abolianchem Fest and this year’s theme is ‘Goinchi Maati’ (The soil of Goa),” informs the officiating principal, Nirmala Institute of Education, Sister Delia Antao, who has been witnessing the festival since 2005. Abolianchem Fest was started 19 years ago as Goa Day, in 2000 by an enthusiastic English Methodology teacher Sharmila Velhogo.
Antao adds, “Sharmila wanted to introduce the culture and ethos of Goa to her students in the English department and hence asked them to work on a project on everything about Goa. The concept won so much appreciation that from the following year, it did not remain restricted to English department and the entire college and faculty were incorporated in the celebration. We now celebrate this day with different themes each year. Last year it was the coconut tree, and this year it’s the soil.”
The students begin to work around the theme from June onwards and make arrangements for their projects. ‘Goenchim Maati’ being an interesting theme they wrote scripts, songs, poems and plays around it. Some documented the soil from different places and put it in gift bottles for people to carry with them while leaving Goa. “This is no longer a cultural programme, but is an educational and academic exercise too, that brings even the families of the students to the campus. There’s no entry fee and all are welcome to come and watch this celebration of music, dance, food, culture, language and soil of the land,” invites Sister Antao.
