Go Goa XI: Bigfoot Cross Museum

A Goan family goes on a Europe visit and comes back with some 250 different types of crosses collected from 8 different countries. This, 8 years back, was the beginning of their cross collection which then got generous additions from Goan Christian community. As they started exhibiting their collections, more and more people started sending them crosses from their personal collection. Mahendra Alvares the head of the family and founder of the Bigfoot Cross museum today has upwards of 1500 crosses with more being added on a regular basis. I was told that this is one of its kind collections in the world.

At the entrance of the museum stands a tall cross with spaces carved out to keep Deeps or oil lamps. Two powerful symbols of the two dominant communities of Goa merged and represented as one symbol. I thought it was quite innovative.

Inside there are vertical cases that hold various crosses. If you visit on your own, you would probably walk past them but if you are escorted and explained, there is wealth of knowledge hidden there. Look at the materials they come in – from twigs tied together to intricately carved ones to scary ones made of small skulls. In terms of material they were in wood, in various metals, in stone, in cloth and in a combination of them.

I later visited the website of the Cross Museum and discovered the explanation for many types of crosses. The simplest cross without any corpse is called Latin cross or the Protestant cross. The reversed cross is St Patrick’s cross and the one in the shape of letter X is St Andrew’s. There were very native crosses painted in bright colors over wood with folk motifs. There is even a cross, inspired from Lotus petals deriving from the Indian mythology. Crosses are classified and arranged in the panels. A look at their web page tells that each region, each native culture around the world designed their own symbol within the definition of a cross – like defining their own identity within the universal identified symbol.

Crosses can be seen on the road intersections, in the streets and in most public places in Goa, in a way becoming the symbol of the state. Some legends behind some of the public crosses are listed on the website.  So, it was time someone paid a tribute to it by curating a museum of Crosses.

The Mouse Charmers - Digital Pioneers of India

Pick up your copy from Flipkart or e-book from Amazon

‘The Internet has transformed business and society. Today to very many of us, life without the web is unimaginable. In business a new breed of entrepreneurshave sprung up whose whole life is the web, creating new business models, reaching new markets and becoming the new normal. These stories are inspiring examples of such successes!’

T.V. Mohandas Pai Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners

The Mouse Charmers
Digital Pioneers of India

Anuradha Goyal

Published by Random House India, Rs 299 trade paperback

‘Are Indian companies and start-ups missing something important by ignoring local language viewers and users of digital content? Are women entrepreneurs too shy of boasting about their achievements? What kind of eco-system will make the life of start-ups in digital age smoother and more meaningful are some of the questions this books addresses, rather well. Those who wish to enter and shake up the inertia in digital markets may find this book useful. But those who wish to support them may find it even more useful.’

Prof Anil K. Gupta Professor at IIM Ahmedabad and founder of Honey Bee Network

‘Anuradha Goyal’s The Mouse Charmers is a fascinating account of India’s trailblazing digital entrepreneurs... Well researched and with deep insights into how these businesses work, The Mouse Charmers will inspire others to both study Indian entrepreneurs like Goyal has done or take up the challenge of entrepreneurship like those she writes about have done. Either way this is an important, timely and inspiring book that showcases the opportunities that India offers and the challenges that have to be overcome along the way.’

Jaideep Prabhu Professor at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and co-author of the bestselling Jugaad Innovation

The advent of Internet has been a significant game-changer for our generation.  Mouse Charmers are a new breed of entrepreneurs in emerging India powered by the Internet and the opportunities that it offers to create new markets and to cater to old markets in new ways. Some of them have already achieved success where they can be called iconic and inspiring while others have powerful ideas that put them on the same path.

Featuring:

Flipkart * MakeMyTrip * Big Basket * CaratLane * Zomato * Games2Win

ImagesBazaar * Chai with Lakshmi * shaadi.com * RangDe * CommonFloor * IndiBlogger

Anuradha Goyal tells the stories of twelve of these digital entrepreneurs in three key areas: commerce, content and connectors.  She examines how they started out, the innovations and technologies involved, their business models, and unique marketing strategies.

Inspiring and insightful, The Mouse Charmers is an essential guide for aspiring digital entrepreneurs.

Pick up your copy from Flipkart or e-book from Amazon

Dandeli: Home of Malabar Pied Hornbill

Spotting the Malabar Pied Hornbill is not difficult if you are in the vicinity of Kali River that flows through the western ghats in Dandeli in Karnataka, India. One of the about 60 odd types of Hornbills, Malabar Pied Hornbill is predominant in Dandeli, in addition to jungles of Madhya Pradesh and Sri Lanka. Our very short trip in March this year to Dandeli Jungle resort was an opportunity to sight this amazing bird to our heart's content.

A distinguishing feature of the adult birds is the huge black and yellow colored bony hollow structure on their bill called casque, which enables them to resonate calls. Our noise pollution levels are so high in cities that we may not appreciate how it enables the birds in the dense forests to locate their own. Malabar Pied Hornbills have black and white plumage with yellow bill. The females have the white orbital skin, in simple words look at the photograph below that has a male and female bird. A white colored ring/patch around the eyes is not seen in males, the bird on top is the female one.

Spotting cashew apple with nut and wild berries in their bill indicates their primary diets.

We saw a lot of these Hornbills in small groups of 4 to 6, flying across the river, landing on top of the trees and socializing.

Bird lovers with professional cameras with a decent zoom and time on hand, in the winter season, can capture awesome images of this near threatened bird Species at Dandeli.

While you can find a variety of birds around Kali River basin, Hornbills distinctly stand out in mind. For me both the welcome and farewell shots, just past Ganesh Gudi were by Hornbills. 

We left Dandeli with a hope to come back again and a prayer  that Malabar Pied Hornbills survive and thrive in these woods.

Go Goa X: An Ode to the Houses of Goa

Walk through the streets of 'yet to be dominated by modern construction' parts of Goa and one wonders if people tell their address as that bright pink house next to the bright green one on a road. The houses are as colorful as they can get and churches are pristine white -standing gracefully in the town squares, on the crossroads leading to various parts of the town. I saw this but did not realize there is a connection between these two color schemes till I visited Houses of Goa museum and discovered that people were not allowed to have an All White House as that was a privilege reserved for the churches in the city. Designed like a ship, that to me looked like a bird with two round windows serving as bird-eyes, this is a museum that values design as much as it values the history of Goan architecture. A kind of paradox though - a very contemporary / modern building trying to preserve the heritage of yesteryear - may be that is how it plans to documents itself in the pages of the history.

A brainchild of famous Goan Architect Gerard da Cunha it documents different aspects of the architecture of the region in a 4 floor structure that is built around a huge central pillar that houses the narrow steep circular staircase connecting the floors. There are maps, there are sketches, there are pictures and there are stories and descriptions as if making you time travel through the various houses of Goa. There are vertical flaps like a book standing against the wall that talks about the various components of a house like balcony, doors, windows, pillars, flooring, panels and sitting spaces in detail. It is treasure house for architecture students. An old Machila - a hand ported carriage that can seat two people face to face sits next to a sketch of it. 

Another floor has the actual tiles, wood panels, door frames and wooden pillars displayed. I found a pair of hands that were used to hold the picture or paintings on the walls, particularly intriguing.   The collection tiles with their patterns and creative design tells us how much we used to invest in our houses. We used to creative in minute details, what did the era of industrialization and mass production did to us. Come to think of it, our ancestors used to construct houses for many generations to come, but now we start thinking of the next big house as soon as we have settled in the first one. No wonder there is no emotional and hence no creative investments in the houses. 

Mario Miranda being one of the key persons associated with the museum and the city can be seen all over, specially at the small souvenir shop at the entrance that also doubles up as the ticketing window. There is small shop where you can buy beverages and packaged snacks.

On the top is a small auditorium that feels like an open air auditorium with a well like opening in the middle. There is a curious display of 30 odd Tulsi plant bases from various homes in Goa. From here you can see the school next door that has an open theater with walls and backdrop of the stage made from empty glass bottles arranged in pleasing patterns. 

What makes Goan architecture unique is the amalgamation of native architecture with the Portuguese architecture that can not be found elsewhere.

If you can not visit it, they have a comprehensive website and another one that lets you look at the architecture in detail. 

Open 10:00 - 7:30 PM

Mondays closed

Entree Fee : Rs 100/- on weekdays and Rs 25/- on Sundays

Hyderabad Hues XXXV: Creative patterns at Paigah Tomb, Hyderabad

There are many intricately designed geometric patterns all over the place. These are not just unique, but also a demonstration of excellence in craftsmanship of the artists.

Each one of decorative Jaalis, if seen intensely can be visualized into multiple designs & patterns. They are spell binding to watch and imagine the possible patterns.

Sixteen of them have been presented here as photo collages, but there are many more to spend enough time admiring the artisanship, patronaged by the Paigah’s over late 18^th century. And more details of the tombs on my earlier blog here. 

If you like art, this place deserves to be on your itinerary during Hyderabad visit. One can easily spend couple of hours admiring several such wonderful works, in this era of declining interest, patronage for arts and crafts. 

Video of the month: Shigmotsav Ghodi Dance

Shigmotsav 2014 at Panjim, the Ghodi Dance performance in colorful attire with high decibel Har Har Mahadev in the air.

Go Goa IX: Shri Mangeshi Temple, Ponda

It is not very well known that Goa is home to many prominent and ancient temples. Before the Portuguese came, Goa was home to Saraswat Brahmins and the temples of their deities. As Portuguese took over and started pushing religious conversions, some percentage of population converted while the others moved to areas that were yet to come under Portuguese and when the moved they took their deities along with them. This is how most temples today are found in the Ponda district of Goa – that came under Portuguese much later and by then they had become more accepting of the other religions.

I visited Mangeshi temple for the first time last year when I was the Deccan Odyssey trip. I found the architecture of the temple intriguing. First of all I had never seen a blue temple, a color that we do not associate with Hindu temples but then it is the color of presiding deity – Shiva. Second there was a huge pillar like structure in front of temple that was too huge for a Dhwajastambh or flagstaff. I wondered what it was and was informed it is the deep stambh or a pillar to light lamps in the evening. Now I am not sure if it is still used for that purpose and I could see no signs of oil lamps like soot or oil stains, but if it was used, I am sure it would look beautiful. Since the temple stands on a hill, this can be seen from quite some distance. Temple structure itself seems to have ample influence from the churches of Goa, though most elements of Hindu temple can be seen – like a Garbhgriha or the sanctum sanctorum, a mandapa or the hall and the pillars. Peshwas donated the current day village of Mangeshi to the temple and the present structure is not too old, though a smaller temple existed on the same place.

Non-saraswats are not allowed inside the temple. You can look at the deity from the distance that is all in silver and beautifully carved and maintained absolutely neatly and cleanly. On my second visit last month though I was lucky to see the actual Linga below the silver top as they were cleaning it. The real linga is a huge black stone that as per the legend came from the base of Bhagirathi River in Himalayas via Bihar, and was in Corlatim area of Goa on the banks of river Zuari before it reached this place. On top of that stone they place the anthromorphic figure of Shiva of Shiva before they deck it up with flowers and silk. It is a typical Shiva temple that is Kuldevta to a section of Saraswat Brahmins. In February / March the Jatra or the fair takes place in the temple premises and it is a typical village fair. At this time you can also see the tall temple chariot in wood.

Behind the main temple is a small shrine dedicated to Sh Mulkeshwar, and if you like me you are wondering ‘Who is he?’, hear this contradicting story. Mulki was a villager, a cowherd who used to live in this area. One of his cows suddenly stopped giving milk and it also used to disappear every evening. He followed the cow one day and found that the cow was giving milk on top of a stone which when dug was nothing but the Shivalinga that is in the temple today. A temple was built and Mulki recognized as its founder. His statue with his cow rests right behind the main shrine. He was a smoker so tobacco rolled in leaves is offered to him even today. It could be something other than tobacco, I am not too sure.

Temple tank lies in front of the temple as it should but is cut off from the temple and both the times I did not see anyone using the tank.  Looks like the modern pipelines made it redundant.

Temples can be a documentation of cultural and anthropological history of the region if we can study them.

Jhabua's Micro Bead Jewelry

I traveled to Jhabua last year for Bhagoria festival and on an evening stroll we went to an artist shop who makes these micro bead jewelry in vibrant colors. Now I have seen this in many modern jewelry shops across India and was surprised to know that it is made in remote villages in tribal belts of India.

Designs and color schemes were pretty contemporary and inviting. There were sets, bangles, ear rings and bold multi-colored bracelets.

On second thoughts I knew that plastic beads can not be a part of native culture, they must have come to this region as part of a skill development or employment generation initiative that the women of this region have well adapted to. Though when I asked this to the artist, he said the workers in his workshop had been working on this kind of jewelry ever since he remembers.

I did pick up a very unusual black with multi-colored piece and now I am looking for an occasion to wear the same...