150 songs, 100 singers, 20 books: Dancing Children to open ‘Petul’ on Sun
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 16 January 2016 12:54 IST
While Goa’s socio-political world is spending its energy on the streets to fight the issue of Medium of Instruction, the Konkani Bhasha Mandal is busy shaping up Goa’s new generation through music, dance and literature by providing the need of the hour.
Over 100 school-going singers from all over Goa have sung over 150 Konkani rhymes and songs while young and veteran writers have penned down new stories for the children – in the form of colourful books illustrated again by young artists of Goa.
It’s called Petul (the magic box?), which consists of the third CD of Shani Masti 3 (children’s songs), three new CDs of children’s rhymes, two books of children’s rhymes and almost 20 books of children’s stories.
The function at Ravindra Bhavan in Margao at 4.21 pm will open the Petu,l not by cutting ribbons but hundreds of students dancing at the tunes of eight new songs penned down by Nayana Adarkar, Saiesh Palondikar, Prasad Lolayekar, Umesh Sardesai and Ratnamala Diukar.
The dances would be performed by the students of six educational institutes – including English medium schools – choreographed by expert dance teachers.
The performing schools are Sarvodaya School (Curchorem), Gurukul Academy (Ponda), Vidya Bhuvan Konkani Shala (Margao), Holy Rosary Convent (Nuvem), Manovikas English School (Margao) and Nritya Sankul (Margao).
“The entire programme is oriented towards children from pre-primary and primary sections, our thrust area,” says Chetan Acharya, president of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal.
While dedicating the whole function to the memory of Dr Manoharrai Sardesai, who was also a powerful chidren’s writer, the series of children’s books are dedicated to the memory of Dr Madhavi Sardesai, called ‘Nanu Pustakmall’.
“The children’s literature has emerged from a number of writing workshops conducted by NCERT and others and the stories are based on experiences of young children in a context of Goa, fantasy, twists in the tale and cultural celebration stories”, said Ratnamala Diukar, a teacher and children’s writer.
The KBM’s experiment of ‘Petul’ of last year was quite a success, which included Shani Masti 2, children's quarterly magazine 'Chirput', a book of nursery rhymes for KG 1 titled 'Makulyanchi Kavana' as well as English-Konkani and Konkani-Konkani primer (Chitrabodh) and Charts (Takate).
“We have also translated 50 best titles of children's stories from English and Hindi in Konkani, which will be soon released along with more original story books in Konkani,” said Anwesha Singbal, the young writer.
The function would be graced by Pune-based educationist Meena Chandavarkar, Industrialist Shrinivas Dhempo, Sethu direcrtor Dr Nandita D'Zouza, Nitin Kunkolienkar, Director of Women and Child Department Shilpa Shinde, Chairman of Goa Board Dr J R Rebello, Chairman of Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan Anil Powar, Chairman of Manovikas Education society Jose Noronha, Chairman of Sarvodaya Education society Nandan Kudchadkar, Industrialist Moulana Ibrahim and Anoop Priolkar of Lokvishwas Pratishthan.
