As the ongoing Advent Season prepares hearts and minds to welcome Baby Jesus on Christmas day, Goans are busy preparing decorations made out of wealth of waste. It’s indeed a wonderful time of the year with everyone into the Christmas spirit. Be it the cribs in their houses, the Christmas trees and beautiful seasonal decorations adorning the walls, the ambience reflects the enthusiasm and celebration. The village of Orlim, has one grand tree that they look forward to visit every year, the Fortes house, belonging to Felipe Neri and Lulu Fortes. For over a decade, he has used the simplest of materials and transformed it into a masterpiece in the form of a Christmas tree that stands tall at the entrance of the house.
From the month of October itself, Felipe starts thinking about the main raw material for the Christmas tree. He will cruise around the village on his bike and wait for inspiration to strike him. “I always look for something natural as the most beautiful things are found in nature. This year, I knew what I wanted to do so I started in the month of November and I singlehandedly completed the Christmas tree. I selected the coconut husk from my neighbour’s house, as it had to be in different sized from top to bottom but it also had to have the perfect shape. I shaped the coconut husks by hand as I previously had an incident with the electric saw. For the baubles, I have used the Matti flowers which grow in the wild. At the base of the tree, I have erected small coconut inflorescence (Shevok) and painted them,” explains Felipe Neri Fortes, making the painstakingly tedious process seem very simple.
“I always plan to do something different and I pick raw materials like wood scrapings, plastic bottles and even dried grass,” says Felipe. In the past, he has made Christmas trees using dried Baby’s Breath, green plastic bottles that he would patiently collect which were strewn in a wedding hall, and even parasite (bendol) that comes up the tree. “These materials are easy to source and in plenty. I cut the green plastic bottles into spirals and that was a whole tree, which stood over six feet tall,” says Felipe.
Felipe Neri Fortes is known by many names in the music industry, which he has been a part of for over 30 years. They call him Felipe, Neri, Fortes and even Filu. “I tell him that Filu is a nice name as it combines both our initials, Felipe and Lulu. Felipe has played for choirs and tiatrs, including directors like M Boyer, Prem Kumar. He also played for Gemini circus. In 1990, he joined Emiliano D’Cruz at Taj Aguada. I was already singing for Emiliano before meeting Felipe. After getting married, we shifted down South as Felipe is from Orlim and I am from Calangute. We started a band with blowing instruments like saxophone and trumpet. The first folk dancers group was started by us in South Goa. Since 1990, we started the Mistletoes Carolers, a children’s carol singing group. Now, we have the children of the children who joined the first few years of in the group this year. We had the band, Rhythms and Blues, and we played for national and international shows. Since, Chris Perry was a family friend, he had also composed a song for us, ‘Sotve Rati,’ say Lulu Fortes, a noted singer.
However, the Christmas tree is solely Felipe’s work. He lovees to do it in his own way and while the family can handle the rest of the decoration, he prefers to work his best on his work of art.
