PANJIM: Musical Warriors will hold its kantaram competition ‘Father Bismarque Memorial Goa Mogi Kantaram Utsav’ today (March 8) at the garden near Institute Menezes Braganza, where the Konkani Kantaram Utsav of the Department of Information and Publicity and Goa Tiatr Academy will be held. The competition will begin at 4 pm and the prize will be “a warm hug, a shawl and a coconut full of love”.
The group has given a call to all kantarists and tiatrists to join hands and sing about the faulty policies of the government and burning issues of the State to raise awareness amongst the people.
Meanwhile, Goans for Goa (GFG) has extended its support to Musical Warriors and issued a clarion call to all professional and amateur tiatrists/kantarists to take part in the parallel competition.
“This competition aims to reveal the truth about the last four years of BJP governance and their anti-people policies and schemes, like Mopa, MoI, RP21, and DefExpo. The BJP government and Tiatr Academy of Goa have insulted our tiatrist brothers by organising a competition to only sing praises of the government and try to tempt them with money. The government must understand that praises should come voluntarily. If the government is doing something good, then there is no need to lure them with money,” said GFG president Kennedy Afonso.
He continued, “Our kantarists have always sung out of free will to expose the wrong policies of the government and not for the sole purpose of winning prize money. In the olden days, we had these ‘kalavanths’ (artistes), who used to entertain for a fee. By organising this competition, the TAG is trying to reduce our respected tiatrist/kantarists to the stature of ‘kalavanths’. All kantarists should shun this competition, which is organised by the very government that was trying to ban singing political songs.”
