Muzzgachem Fest, a festival on inclusion and accessibility, curated by Marius
Fernandes and coordinated by Prakash Kamat, in association with the National
Association for the Blind (NAB) was held on Sunday. This fest marked Festakar
Marius Fernandes’s 20 years in Goa, curating various people’s festivals.
“This is my 20th anniversary of doing people’s festivals around
Goa. The brand ‘Fest’ is well-known in the Goan world, so now, in order to
sustain this model, I am moving this idea into institutions. Abolianchem Fest
at Nirmala institute on the February 1, Muzzgachem Fest at NAB on February 2 and
Maddachem Fest at Sanjay School, Porvorim are examples of sharing knowledge,
expertise and excellence and empowering others, besides being our social
responsibility. From now onwards, all festivals will be inclusive and
accessible to all communities and the differently-abled,” says Marius
Fernandes.
As a run up to this, Goans worked on their areas of expertise over
four days. Workshops, held by noted award-winning Goans, included painting by
Harshada Kerkar and Adithyaa Sadashiv, chess by Sandeep Heble, pottery by Navso
Parvar, football by Fabian D’ Souza, basket weaving by visually impaired Louiza
D’Mello, cooking by Pushpa Chodankar (NAB cook) and knitting demonstration by
visually impaired Josephine D’Souza. A young Goan inventor, Samson Da Costa from
Carmona, demonstrated his coconut climbing machine.
The second day of workshops began with a chess workshop by SAG
chess coach Avinash Malvankar; football by veterans Augostinho Dias and Fabian
D’Souza; painting by Mumtaj Shaikh and Shakhira Khan; ghumot workshop by Inacio
Madeira; vocal and dance training by guitarist Glenis Mendonca and singer Rhea
Dias; and mollam making by visually impaired Rama Parsekar.
The third day had talented resource persons conducting various
workshops including coconut climbing demonstration by visually impaired student
Purjut Jha and gardening by President of NAB and Mr Farmer, Rozendo Mendonsa.
Ghumot seller Anthony Fernandes arrived with his ghumots and participated in
the ongoing music workshop along with Glenis and the others. He was also
present for the Muzzgachem Fest, selling ghumots at the venue.
The fourth day of the workshops began with the same enthusiasm at
the National Association for the Blind, Santa Cruz. Besides workshops in
pottery, chess, knitting, mollam making demonstration and coconut climbing
demonstration, there was also a painting workshop by Babaji Raut, along with a
singing and dancing session. Miguel Braganza from the Botanical society of Goa
and RJ Joed Almeida visited the centre and interacted with the participants at
the workshop.
The workshops under the fest continued till February 1, and
culminated with the grand celebration of the ‘Muzzgachem Fest’. The festival
started at 11:01am from Santa Cruz church with the ‘Muzzgachi pasoi ‘ (Musical
Heritage Walk) with historian Sanjeev Sardesai followed by performances by
talented artists from all over Goa at NAB till 6pm. Miguel Braganza presented a grafting session at the festival.
Arturo D’Souza, social activist, who led the ‘Save Bondvoll Lake Campaign’,
displayed information about the famous water body. Adv Akshada Mamledar
volunteered and shared information about ‘Intellectual Property Law’ at the
fest. The festival showcased different forms of instruments like guitars,
violins, ghumots, etc and music, dance and theatre with traditional Goan food.
The precursor to this event was inaugurated at the National Association for the Blind on January 27, by the President of NAB, Rozendo Mendonsa, veteran Ex- football player John Coutinho, curator of Muzzgachem Fest Marius Fernandes, coordinator of the fest Prakash Kamat and the committee members of NAB.