Team Herald
MARGAO: The Shigmo float parade at Margao went off smoothly with the last chitra rath or float crossing the stage with a couple of minutes left for the deadline of 10 pm when the lights and sound system were switched off.
In all 11 romtamell, 9 folk dances and 28 floats participated in the parade that started from the SGPDA grounds at 4:45 and culminated at the temple near Fatorda ground covering a distance of around 1.5 kms.
While there was no chief guest for the parade today, it was judged by Naguesh Rao Sardessai, Vithoba Sonu Velip, Ravindra Amonkar and Suraj Nadkarni with Anil Pai compering the whole programme.
Mussol, ghode modni and goff were some of the folk dances performed. Women proved that they are capable of matching the male as women performed the extremely vigorous goff dance that used to be n normally performed by males.
The mussol dance was totally mutilated by the women who performed it as traditionally it is performed by males to pound the pestle on the ground while the women did not pound it all but merely used it to tap the ground at time as the dance movements were totally changed.
At 8 pm realizing that the time was short the organizers along with the police tried to urge the troupes to move faster. However, Shri Swarsai Shigmotsav Mandal Mapusa ignored all the urgings to speed up and took 15 minutes to cross the stage while other groups took at the most 10 minutes.
The first float reached the stage at 9 pm and by around 9:55 pm all the 28 floats had passed the stage. Chairman of the Fatorda Margao Shigmotsav Samiti Siddhivinayak Naik was seen moving all along the route to ensure that the groups did not waste time.
The Booth Level Officers used the float parade to create awareness on the Lok Sabha elections scheduled on April 23 by carrying posters and placards and making announcements. They also got people to pose for a selfie with the poster stating “I will vote”.
While most of the floats were simple and mounted on one trailer that was pulled by either a jeep or a rickshaw there were six floats that were mounted on three different trailers and had to be pulled by a truck. Two floats were fitted on two trailers.
