A feast for every season is the Goan manner of celebrating...be in the scorching heat of summer, December’s biting cold or in June’s incessant rain. But the most colourful, physical and thoroughly enjoyable one to behold is the wet outdoors event--the Sao Joao water festival on June 24...

   

Tirakol Tigers

The deeply religious folk, consisting of about 65 households had an ancient tradition. Bare-chested boys and men, painted as tigers, would catch a pigling let loose among them, with their bare teeth. A near callibalistic ritual, which had come down the centuries, was eventually stopped a couple of years ago, when the animal lovers raised a ruckus over it.

In Siolim

For the people of Siolim it’s a grand celebration of the spirit of daring and adventure. Siolcars indulge in the usual jumping in the well, chanting “Viva Sao Joao” in the morning of June 24. Moreover, for over 150 years, Sao Joao revellers have been rowing up the Chapora river from Zhor in Anjuna, Badem in Assagao and from Siolim itself, in their canoes to the chapel of Sao Joao at Pereira Vaddo, to pay their yearly homage and partake of the traditional dali.

People gather on the river bank with the dali, gifts containing seasonal fruits and a bottle of feni, particularly offered by newly married couples or those who had a child born since June 24 last. The arrival of the boats is heralded by the blowing of the conch shell.

Youngsters and even elders singing and dancing to the nostalgic beat of the madiem-ghumot (percussion instruments) and kansallem (cymbals), with lovely coronets of seasonal flowers on the head...well drenched (some fortified with feni to fight off the cold). Members of each group religiously climb up both the tall crosses in front of the church and place the kopel on them and return back the way they came.

It made a “terrific” scene in the backwoods. So Alexyz, Long John, Fermino D’Souza and a few others decided to upstage it...bring it up to the bridge, in front of the Church of St Anthony. More people could then share in the thrilling, rustic spectacle. The spot too was ideal, hard by the Siolim bazaar, where the large traffic too gets a glimpse of it while passing over the bridge.

Realising that this is a fine reason and the right season to draw out people from their homes, to meet and celebrate even in the monsoons, and that’s how they gave birth to the colourful boat parade to draw crowds to the wet outdoors...To retain the ethnic flavour they even distributed san’nam!

The monsoon event has now turned puc’ca traditional. This year, a group of dynamic youngsters banding under the banner of Siolim Sao Joao Boat Festival Committee put up a spectacular show. Joel Gomes, one of the organisers had said a few days earlier, “This year’s programme promises to be better than ever before.” It happened so. Five colourfully decorated boats rowed up the river from Vaddi, and Chapora and Zhor in Anjuna, and Badem in Assagao.

They were welcomed by Bonaventure D’Pietro’s band belting out ethnic favourites like “San Juanv, San Juanv, ghunvta mure, vaitt kaim dissonam/ Oslim festam vorsak kiteak don pavtti ienam”, from the stage erected beside the bridge. Both were applauded by the excited crowds braving the heavy showers. People wearing colourful, flower-decked crowns occupied every vantage point...Around the stage with water gushing around the ankles, over the busy bridge-road, either river-bank, tree tops and roof tops...They came from far and near to witness the gala Sao Joao event.

There were competitions and prizes galore for the public. The participants on the boats too came on the stage to entertain the crowd with traditional songs. There were three cash prizes for the best decorated boats, and prizes too for the best costume, loveliest headgear and for singing. A small section even danced in front of the stage. This year, rockstar Remo Fernandes, who had been gracing the occasion with his presence and singing, must have been busy elsewhere. He wasn’t there but the Britton brother--H Britton and T Britton--entertained the crowd.

The boat parade, compered by upcoming moodsetter Vincent Britto from Mandrem, was covered by the Goa Studios of Doordarshan. The main function was held in front of St Anthony’s church in Siolim but it ended eventually at Chapora. So the boats sailed away in the pouring rain, singing joyfully to the beat of the country ghumot, squealing “Viva Sao Joao” to return yet again next year.

Caught up in the excited crowd, however, I missed a still more traditional sight that the youngsters of Gaunsvaddo organise. Revellers of Gaunsvaddo, Terriero Vaddo and Rodrigues vaddo join in to celebrate “San Juanv”... Mainly responsible for keeping the age old tradition alive here is the evergreen Anthony Fernandes, better known as Nemo Anton. Popular for his virtuosity on the madiem and ghumott and his vintage folk songs, the aging Sao Joao patriarch leads the annual celebration with gay abandon.

Prayers at the roadside chapels are held as the group arrives at the Bolakarachem Bhatt. A reveller then wades through waist deep water and crowns a cross in the middle of the field with a kopel. Prayers and an exuberant madiem-ghumott-kansallem session follows, with san’na, vodde, seasonal fruits and feni. The revellers then jump in traditionally prescribed wells only, in the process collecting the unconsumed feni in a garafao. An appropriate day is fixed and the same is consumed after a ladainha, sung at the Bolakarachem Bhat cross.

The lovely headgear, the mood, the spirit, the singing...and all to the traditional beat of ghumot-madiem. And if primitive Goan beat is your quest, the vaddo to head for on Sao Joao day is Guddem in Siolim. Here even some Hindus join the celebrations...Siolim is also the place where the communal spirit survives still.

Viva Sao Joao!

Joel D’Souza