There’s a bittersweet sense of nostalgia when you watch a mando performance. You see the impeccably dressed men and women, tailcoats and sarees swaying in the breeze, the forlorn melody of the main mando being sung, an audience in rapture. At Kala Academy, the Goa Cultural and Social Centre organized State Level Mando Festival, the auditorium is not packed to the rafters, but whatever happens on the night stays true to the essence of the mando.
The bittersweet part is the fact that the mando, despite all efforts to keep it alive, is losing ground, albeit at a very slow pace. It is perhaps the problem with traditions, they are dying out, some slow, some quicker than usual, in a world that is growing closer together via technology but moving further apart from the bonds that once kept communities together. With that as the backdrop, all efforts to let the mando tread water will only seem to delay the inevitable. But the people at the Goa Cultural and Social Centre (GCSC) spare no efforts to keep that flag flying high.
From the clube to an auditorium
“Clube Nacional were the first to start a state level festival for the mando,” says Isac Hilario Dias, vice president at the GCSC. He goes on to detail the history of the festival, as the Konkani Bhasha Mandal continued the tradition, holding the festival from 1968 to 1972. “But everything went down,” he says, suggesting a drop in popularity of the art form. The GCSC took charge of the festival in 1974 and have been holding an annual edition every year since then. “They did it so nicely that more and more groups came. Earlier the Konkani Bhasha Mandal used to have elimination contests. But, we went this way “ Let everybody come. We got schools and colleges… That was what we wanted to have, not just old people,” says the 72 year old Dias.
Not much has changed in the past 40 odd years of the festival, apart from the audience. It had started as a one day festival but now another day got added on. This meant more participants, as the number rose. As of now, around 40 groups perform over two days. “We even tried to hold the festival in Margao too,” says Dias, stating that the costs were prohibitive.
The government is involved now and former chief minister Manohar Parrikar ensured that the department of art and culture extends financial and other support to the GCSC. But, that too isn’t really helping. “Costs are rising,” says Dias.
Dancing to the rhythm
The mando is a great example of the merging of different styles. In the mando and the dulpod, a mix of western and Indian cultures exist, the violin and a ghumot, the suit and saree and even the music. “The main mando is more western and the dulpod more Indian. But the entire song is western in rhythm and Indian with regard to the melody,” Dias explains.
The history is very much a reflection of the rhythm of the mando, both western and India. The elite classes of Goa embraced the mando. It was a born out of their merging of cultures and remains so. Perhaps this is why the mando hasn’t branched out and moved across the ‘classes’? For most people, elite and Catholic were synonymous, a misconception and a common one at that. “The mando is not Catholic, it is Goan,” says Dias, eager to shrug off any tags that the mando doesn’t need.
The main mando is about love, the dulpod varies, from an exciting story to a taunt. The latter method was quite common during the Portuguese era in Goa, when lyricists used the mando to poke fun at the Portuguese, like writing about the Pinto revolution. It is still prevalent today. One of the mandos at the 2014 edition of the festival read thus:
Santanichea dongar mhunni pakle apoita
Porvorim choi pulisek khapri nachoita
(Foreigners are beckoning from atop the hill
While, the police are dancing to the Africans’ tunes at Porvorim)
Mando and the machine
But despite all this, the State has a good relationship with the GCSC and by extension, the mando. The department of art and culture gives the GCSC funds and Kala Academy allows them to stage the festival for no charge. “We can’t sell tickets so we sell souvenirs and make money from the advertisements, but even that has slowed down over the past few years,” Dias says in a sad tone.
The President of the GCSC, Francis Noronha states the importance of the mando in the days of yore. “There was a time when no elite wedding ended without a mando being performed. This is our heritage and hence it must be preserved,” Noronha says. New mandos are written every year. Noronha says that a minimum of 8-10 new mandos are performed at every festival. Out of the 40 groups taking part in the festival, around 15 are composed of youth, proof that there is a flicker of hope for the mando.
If there is anything that will serve to slow this progress down, it is money. The Goa Cultural and Social Centre needs money to stage the festival and money for a small office. For almost five decades now, they have been working without their own premises, putting plans for a bibliography, preserved manuscripts, audio recording and more on hold. All this will not just help preserve the mando but also let it be taken to every corner of the state, so that Goa can cherish an art form that is as unique as the circumstances in which it was created.
There is a reason why they ‘perform’ the mando, they don’t just ‘sing’ it. That’s because the mando is more than just the song, it’s an enriched vestige of a Goa that may not exist anymore.
