Joe Antao Memorial Mando Festival held

Ganv Bhavancho Ekvott organized the first Adv. Joe Antao Iadostik Mando Utsav (Adv. Joe Antao Memorial Mando Festival) on 29th April 2017 in honour of its president late Advocate Joe Antao who died in office and who was a great singer and Mando lover.

In all, six groups presented seven Mandos which were much appreciated by the large crowd gathered in front of the Chandor church near the cross to witness the festival. Goa’s extremely popular Mando groups like the Curtorimchim Motiam and Orlimchim Mogrim participated in the festival.

Incidentally Orlimchim Mogrim won the first prize at the Kala Acaemi Mando Festival held in 2016 and they presented two Mandos. While one was the traditional one the other was the dancing Mando which was very much appreciated.

Four groups from Chandor participated and they were extremely mesmerizing as they sang very well and some of them wrote special lyrics that were much applauded. Chandorche Fulte Bonge led by Rosemary Dias had a dulpod praising Ganv Bhavancho Ekvott and its work in maintaining cleanliness in the village.

Stars of Anthoi and Pocklemol led by Effy and Amy also had some creatively written dulpods. The other two groups from Chandor were Chandorchim Motiam and Guirdolecho Awaz whose singing was truly enchanting.
The Mando Festival was sponsored by Joe Antao’s family and more particularly his son Glenn Antao who is also a member of Ganv Bhavancho Ekvott.

At the Quiz contest on ‘Konn, Kednam ani Kitem’ organized on the same day to kill time taken by the next group to come on stage to present its Mando, Roberto Mascarenhas from Guirdolim won the first prize, while Celine Coelho Furtado from Cavorim won the second prize and the third prize was shared by Joe Fernandes from Guirdolim and Emerson Britto from Cavorim.

Incidentally Celine Coelho Furtado is GBE General Secretary on leave Felix Furtado’s wife while Joe Fernandes is late Joe Antao’s brother-in-law and Emerson Britto is GBE Managing Committee member Irene Antao’s son.
Augusto Pereira from Igorjebhat who is presently living in London sponsored the expenses of the quiz contest and he deserves praises because the quiz enlightened the people of Chandor of a lot of things about their village that they were not aware of even though they would see the sights every day.

GBE felicitated two musicians from the village who have been playing selflessly for various functions and especially for Mando festivals. The two felicitated were the very popular violinist Pascoal Pereira and the very well known ghumot player Jose Gomes who in fact accompanied three of the groups from the village.

Acting president Darwin Cardoso along with Anthony Pereira slogged to organize the Mando festival and they truly deserve a round of applause for getting four high caliber groups from Chandor to participate. Maybe all non-resident Chandorkars should seriously consider doing their might to have a group from Chandor participate in the Kala Academy Mando festival as we have the talent but maybe lack the finance.