The pace of life in Goa is stepping up and with it there is little time for the finer aspects of life. There is a perceptible change occurring, especially in the urban areas and it is not just in the landscape that we can see the transformation. The towns and Panjim city no doubt have an urban look about them wrought about by the concrete structure that dominate the skyline and the unending traffic snarls that clog the streets, but the change that is happening is also within the people. This was so very evident in, of all the places, the Panjim market.
Mingled with scent of ripened mangoes and rotting vegetables the strains of western music wafted through Panjim market one day last week. On the floor above was a lone musician, standing in front of Mario Miranda’s mural of a market scene, playing some old soothing western tunes on the guitar and harmonica simultaneously. And he was not a mendicant for he was standing with his note stand and with posters on either side. The effect was almost surreal, if one paused for a moment to drink it in. But not many did pause. Oblivious to the man and the music some sweepers of the Corporation of the City of Panaji swept away the garbage scattered in front of him. A few migrant labourers leaned against the railing watching the man play and a child drew his father by the hand to the scene. Most of the other shoppers walked by as if the scene was one they encountered daily in the Panjim market. Inquiring with the musician got a quick response that it was to give people on their daily grind some cheerful moments. He went back to his music and picked another old western tune to strum on his guitar.
A few years ago in Washington, USA, as an experiment, the Washington Post arranged for violinist Joshua Bell to perform in the US capital city’s subway during the early morning. Bell, whose concerts are sold out in advance, didn’t even draw a motley crowd of Washington’s powerful who were hurrying to their day’s work. As the Washington Post said nobody knew that the musician was ‘one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made’. Of over a thousand that passed by just seven stopped for a few moments before going their way. Bell continued playing for 45 minutes and at the end of his performance had collected 32 dollars from 27 subway users who strode past him. For his concerts people willingly pay 100 dollars for a passably good seat. The conclusion was that everybody was busy with little time to appreciate life.
That was in USA in 2007. Today in 2015, is that what’s happening in Goa?
The musician at the Panjim market was neither a great nor playing the best of music, nor was it an experiment. But as he stood there performing for the shoppers he must have felt a little disappointed that his music was not being appreciated. There was no applause and sometimes not even a passing glance from the hurried shoppers. Sad, but to many of the passersby it was as if he was not there.
The reason why this performance merits some column space is because what was on view was not just a musical performance, but an attempt by the local municipal body to bring about a qualitative change in the lives of the people, an act which deserves the thumbs up. Unfortunately the people seemed oblivious to this. The performance was organised by the Natural Streets For Performing Arts in collaboration with the Corporation of the City of Panaji.
The municipal Corporation, that often struggles to give the residents of Panjim a clean city and market, has proved by this initiative that it can look beyond the blinkered vision of a bureaucratic body that is bound by red tape and procedures to bring the arts to the people. Right, the market is still squalid and the lanes outside it are filthy and unhygienic, the fish and poultry and meat market is yet to be constructed, but to give CCP its due, this little initiative has made some difference in perception. So, while there is a positive change in attitude of the administration in lending a hand to such a performance, the people’s outlook towards this appears to be one that is totally unconcerned with change. It is only when a citizenry begins to appreciate the finer aspects of life that there can be a change in attitude.
Yet this perhaps wouldn’t be so some years ago. Goa is changing before our very eyes. Until a few weeks ago an impromptu game of cricket among residents of that area and comprising players of all ages would take place in the bylanes of the Campal heritage area. That game is not so regular any longer. The same can be said about the football games played in the paddy fields of Goa, that are slowly petering out. What happened to the day when a football game among the boys made people stop their cycles and watch?
The change in the people’s way of being is very visible. Some decades ago a performance such as this would have definitely drawn a crowd, an appreciative one that would have hung around the musician ad applauded, even joined in perhaps. This may still happen in some of the villages, but the towns and cities have moved beyond this life into the fast pace of the 21st century and with it has gone a part of Goa.
(The writer is Executive Editor, Herald)
