TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: As Goa gears up to hurtle headlong into Carnival celebrations beginning today, the capital Panjim is all decked with typical circus atmosphere, with giant masks and public street party as part of the tourism department’s grand Carnival showing this year.
King Momo, Tome Fernandes with his grand entourage, will lead the carnival parade at 3.30 pm and open the flood gates for four days of fun and frolic ahead of the Catholic season of Lent. The carnival parade will be flagged off from below the Mandovi Bridge with King Momo’s float will lead nearly 100 floats which will sashay down the scenic river front promenade, for which elaborate arrangements have been made.
Until Friday, around 60 applications had been received by the Panjim Carnival Committee for the Panjim float parade. “There are always late entries and we are certain to see as many as 90 to 100 floats,” said Sanjit Rodrigues, President of the Panjim Carnival Committee.
In a bid to maintain the tempo, throughout the parade route, this year the judging pattern has been tweaked a little. The six judges will be at different location in pairs of two, all along the route.
Carnival or Carnavale is an integral part of the Christian calendar, but other traditions date it prior to the Christian era. While some historians trace the origins of the Italian carnival to the Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Bacchanalia others suggest that the Roman festivals themselves would have come from Greek Dionysia and Oriental festivals.
The Goan carnival would have come from the Portuguese carnival which in turn would have been influenced by the famous carnival of Venice. Literally carnival comes from the Italian root carne levare, which means “to remove meat”, or the Latin carnevale, which means “farewell to meat”, since meat is prohibited during Lent.
The ticketed seating arrangements have received a good response as charter operators have booked seats for foreign tourists.
On Friday itself, the Panjim Carnival Committee began carnival programmes to usher in the festive mood with a brass band playing at Church Square. Sound systems all along D B Marg played carnival tunes here on Friday.
The highlights of the fiesta lined up by the Panjim Carnival committee include treasure hunt with bicycles, face painting, stilt walking, vintage/junk bike contests, child art contests, balloon show, fun games, fancy dress, magic show and kids carnival, in addition to musical shows, dances and more.
There will also be a contest for the best dressed spectator at the float parade.
For the first time after its renovation, programmes will be held in the Garcia de Orta Corporation Garden, besides a special edition of NOMOZO is scheduled on Sunday.
The Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) has also trained a large number of volunteers to keep the city free from litter. The Seeti Bajao team will also be doing their bit to create awareness among carnival revellers to keep the city clean.
