PANAJI
The Pilerne Thursday Heritage Market (PTHM) will celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 9.
A 96-year-old great grandmother who is the market’s senior-most, a regular visitor, a retired teacher, a doctor and a poet among other outstanding women of the village, will be felicitated on the occasion.
Song and dance performances and poetry reading will highlight the IWD-2023 theme: “Embrace Equity.”
In keeping with the celebration, and its pledge to spread social awareness, an all-women team will run this Thursday’s Market.
Committed to saving the planet, the PTHM is striving to be Zero Waste. Disposables are banned and visitors are encouraged to bring their own plates and cutlery.
Following the government directives, Single Use Plastics (SUPs) are also banned and most vendors use natural materials like banana, jackfruit and areca nut leaves, coconut shell, bamboo and earthenware to display products and serve food.
The PTHM is ‘inclusive’ by design. People with disabilities and Goa’s very ‘special people’ are warmly welcomed. They feel at home, because all areas of the Market are accessible to
them.
The Market has a Food Court, where visitors can sit at tables and spend a warm, happy evening in groups or as families. Cooked in homely, vaddo kitchens, traditional Goan snacks, authentic heritage cuisine, age-old, village sweets and desserts, together with tea, coffee and soft drinks, fully satisfy veg, non-veg and vegan taste buds.
There is live music, nostalgic Konkani community singing and a dancing space. Everything happens within the Food Court.
Health foods, artwork, handicrafts, embroidery, soaps and candles all made by the villagers, together with plants, a jumble sale and a Gift Economy counter, make the weekly PTHM a discerning shopper’s, niche market.
This vocal-for-local character of the heritage market, is designed to strengthen the grassroots, village economy. It ensures that employment and business starts from the kitchens, studios and little workshops in the vaddos, mainly of Pilerne.
With an eye on equipping future generations, the PTHM is also a great platform for villagers, especially the young, to showcase different talents: singing, dancing, acting, compering and everything that they love to do, either as a hobby or as a career.
The PTHM is a very intimate space, where culture, tradition, heritage and economics meet.
It aims to keep local Pilernekars financially grounded in their vaddos, while being deeply rooted in the Goa, they all love so much.
