Born and raised in Paris, Carino has paid rich tributes to his roots. And this is not just by visiting his maternal grandparents every year. As much as that is quite endearing, Carino wanted to find new ways to keep these cherished moments alive for posterity. In fact, he had made it his mission, to help preserve Goa’s legacy for the world and future generations.
“My parents always bathed me in Goan culture, through the food, the song, the stories, but more importantly Konkani,” quipped Carino.
Little did he know that his efforts would be so well received by such a wide audience. For instance, his speech at Tedx INSA Conference in France resonated with Goans living in India and abroad. With the help of Youtube, he managed to connect with much more than he had originally expected.
“After my speech in France, I was surprised by the number of people who came to me, even though they weren’t from cultural minorities. That comforted me with the idea that endangered language is not only an issue for cultural minorities, but also the whole world,” said Carino, who has since spoken at other conferences on this subject.
He also travelled to Goa as he felt it would be a great way to meet those who are working in the field of preservation of Konkani. Carino had been invited to give the speech by Professor Irene Silveira from Goa University. He had met Silveira during the feast of ‘Our Lady of the Rosary’ in France when she was visiting the country to collect information about the Goan Community of Paris for her PhD.
“The Goan community in France is very strong. We usually meet for religious feasts where we keep up with the traditions of our homeland as well as for functions like birthdays, christenings etc,” adds Carino, while elaborating on how a chance encounter with a fellow Goan helped him in his endeavour .
The underlying message of his speeches at these various conferences focuses on how language diversity is closely related to cultural diversity, which he believes is one of the most valuable human traits there is. He also emphasises upon the fact that languages can shape the way one sees the world and that it contains a lot of information about our ancestors and their environments.
Carino shares one of his trademark message at these conferences – “Do you want your children to live in a monochromatic world or do you want to embrace the world cultural diversity and live in a rainbow of colours of cultures? This is what is at stake with language endangerment. The choice to preserve these languages is entirely ours, but we have to act fast as one language dies every other week.”
