Older people are especially vulnerable to loneliness and it can have serious effects on them but there are ways to overcome this problem and one of them is to give them various opportunities to participate in various activities.
Ravindra Bhavan, Curchorem organized a Senior Citizen Festival in their auditorium on Saturday where many seniors from different places in Goa participated in competitions organized during the festival such as solo singing, monologue/natyapravesh/tiatr Dialogue, Ovayo Recitation and Extempore Speech.
Old age homes, ‘Should I spend all my earnings on my children or keep some for me’, marriages during childhood, ‘Carati’ – an olden day mode of transport, teachers and schools of those days etc are some of the topics that were given to the participants in the extempore speech competition.
Speaking to Herald, Vice-Chairman of Ravindra Bhavan, Rajoo Naik said that the main aim of organizing the festival for senior citizens was to give them an opportunity to come together and share joy. “Some of the good artists who were known then are forgotten now and for them, this is the opportunity to show their talent along with others. We also organized an Ovayo recitation competition particularly for women senior citizens to bring it back to life again due to the fact that the Ovayo is slowly dying now,” said Naik.
Expressing happiness and recollecting the olden days, around 70 years ago, Vittabai Narayan Naik said that she is very happy as she got a chance once again to sing on stage.
President of the Curchorem senior citizen committee, Chandrakant Malkarnekar thanked the authorities for giving an opportunity to senior citizens to come together by organizing the festival and wished that this type of festival should be conducted all over Goa. “Many seniors also got an opportunity to showcase their talent to their grandchildren which is a matter of pride for them,” explained Malkanekar.
Earlier the festival was inaugurated at the hands of Curchorem MLA, Nilesh Cabral by lighting of the traditional lamp in the presence of Curchorem-Cacora Municipal Council Chairperson, Vishwas Sawant, All Goa Senior Citizen President Diogo D’Costa, Councillors and other dignitaries.
In the solo singing competition, Milind Mardolkar finished on top while Chandrakant Borkar and Ranjt Kakodkar came in second and third respectively.
Shanu Dessai, Sadanand Nadkarni and Ashok Sawant Dessai bagged the first, second and third prize respectively in Monologue/Natyapravesh competition. In Ovayo recitation, Sunanada Naik, Jaymini Naik, Suman Naik won the first prize while Jayanti Naik, Shebdule Naik, Dayawati Bhandari came in second. Sulbha Shirodkar and Rekha Shahapurkar were the second runners up.
Rajani Bhembre, Hortencio Pereira and Suhas Dessai came in first, second and third respectively in the extempore speech event.
