“Friends, Goenkars, Countrymen, lend me your ears.” Is
that not how the line went? One could see it happening if
Shakespeare had been writing in Goa instead of Stratford-upon-
Avon. And that is exactly what Prof Rajshree Dessai, Head of
Department of English at Chowgule College in Margao had in
mind when she worked out the nitty-gritty of hosting an event
that was dedicated to Shakespeare.
Lending a local twist with the christening of the event,
Professor Andrew Barretto of the Department of English explains
the reasoning behind the title of the event, saying, “It was an
arbitrary decision. All across the world this festival is named
according to the region it’s being held in, so we thought of
regionally customising the event; Shakespeare Festival – The
Bard by the Mandovi is the brainchild of Prof Rajshree Dessai.
She wanted to make the title unique to the land of Goa. In
her mind, she had an image of a poet sitting by the river and
composing a poem in its tranquillity.”
The event is an attempt at popularising literature amongst
college youth, with a high level of participation indicative of their
interest in the same. “The Goa Board doesn’t have any significant
work of Shakespeare in its English Literature syllabus. Only ICSE/
CBSE schools offer this. This is why, when students come to
college, they have zero knowledge about Shakespeare. So, to
promote English literature and develop an interest in students
with regards to Shakespeare, we started annually celebrating
this festival. With the passage of time, we included Classical
poets and Goan writers in English in the festival,” says Professor
Andrew Barretto of the college’s Department of English.
This year’s edition of the Festival saw a total of 14 teams
participate in six events over the course of a day. The events that
took place on stage included the likes of ‘Steal A Scene’, which
involved students enacting a scene from Shakespeare’s Plays,
‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen’, where students used ICT to
make a presentation and fielded questions from judges; ‘The
Bard’, which required participants to recite poems from a range
of poets, classical and contemporary and lastly, ‘Shakespeare
Soliloquy’, where students acted with dramatic flair.
This year saw top honours go to ‘Team Hamlet’ from Sharada
Mandir High School as Manovikas English Medium High School,
and Chowgule Higher Secondary School finished in Runner-up
and Second Runner-up positions respectively.
