PANAJI: The season to Samba and serenade on the streets is finally round the corner with Goa all set to come alive with the four-day carnival, it’s festival of music, dance and merry-making from February 25 to 28.
In addition to maintaining the traditional and cultural essence of the carnival, a pre-liturgical season of Lent festival which is celebrated in this former Portuguese colony annually, the focus this year is on weeding out non-eco friendly floats, polluting junk vehicles and a total crack down on indecency.
Spectacular float parades and festivities and an array of events and activities are on the cards.
The legendary King Momo, the mythical king of carnival, will rule over Goa for four days and will throw open the revelry in Panaji on February 25.
Elaborate floats, music, dancing and décor will form part of the carnival extravaganza.
The festival is expected to attract large number of domestic and foreign to witness the float parades in Panjim, Margao, Vasco and Mapusa to be held on February 25, 26, 27 and 28, respectively.
The annual carnival, celebrated since the 18th Century, exclusive and unique to this State, and was introduced by the Portuguese who ruled over Goa for over 500 years.
With the festival becoming part of the State’s annual tourism festival calender, the float parades are organised in association with the State Tourism Department by the local travel and hospitality industry.
Although, the four-day festival is primarily celebrated by Christians, it has also absorbed Hindu tradition revelry, western dance forms, and turned into a pageantry of sorts.
Following obsessive commercialisation which led to complaints from people, the Goa Church at the behest of civil society groups and others, came out openly a few years back disassociating itself with the celebrations as Catholic festival.
The word ‘carnival’ (carnaval in Portuguese) is derived from a Latin word meaning to take away meat and is an expression of the 40-day period of fasting of Lent, during which abstinence from meat is a rule.
The carnival was in decline even in Goa in the last few years of Portuguese rule. It was revived with the Liberation of Goa, and is a boost to tourism.
Unlike its commercialised tourism “avtar” in urban areas as well as in the coastal belt buzzing with tourists, the carnival in villages is celebrated with fun and gaiety in a traditional form by organising “tiatro-Lokancho khel”, a traditional Konkani drama and fancy dress attire worn by revellers dancing through the village streets.
