Serendipity 2

 I first attended a serendipity event in 2019 and wrote about it. This is a bit more detailed account.

 

‘Serendipity Arts Festival’ is supposed to be one of the largest arts festivals in India. It is promoted by the Serendipity Arts Foundation. Panaji, the capital of Goa is the usual venue and it happens during November - December every year. It runs for a week and is held at more than half a dozen venues across Panaji. 10 - 15 different programmes everyday from 9am to 10pm. There are workshops, performances, exhibitions and many more events based on Music, Arts, Creative arts, Cooking, Sculpting, Writing, Dance, Traditional art forms and what not. 

We have been attending programmes of our interest since the last three years. I attended a programme named ‘River Raga’ two days back and also yesterday. It is held from 5pm to 6 pm everyday. River Raga is one of our favorites. The venue is a ferry Boat. A platform is made at one end of the deck for the performers and seating is arranged for about 250 people. 

Entry to the ferry starts around 4.30 pm, the Ferry starts sailing exactly at 5pm and the performance begins. It is an enjoyable one hour of sailing on the river Mandovi listening to music while taking in the surrounding sights and experiencing the sea breeze. The ferry docks back at 6pm when the performance ends. 

The first one that I attended was a Carnatic Classical concert by Vidushi Varijashree Venugopal, accompanied on the Mridangam by Vidwan Manjunath. Yesterday it was Pandit Prattyush Banerjee on Sarod accompanied by Pandit Mayank Bedekar, a well known Goan artist on the Tabla. 

There will be many events which are not of my interest but I like the Festival as a whole. I am impressed by the attention to details and the discipline. 

The programmes start and end as mentioned in the list. There are hundreds of volunteers all over the venues who courteously provide information and guide the visitors. There is a continuous free transport service between the venues available for the asking. Most of the programmes are free and open to all. Few with limited seats are ticketed but not exorbitant. Online registration for the programmes is a must. Volunteers at the venue help with registration if one is unable to do it. 

I would love to attend many of the events but can’t make it to all of them because of the distance. Ponda is 30kms from Panaji. We select a few which are convenient. After the ‘River Raga’ yesterday, I also attended a wonderful song and dance performance. 

I noticed that there were many visitors who had come to Goa just for the sake of ‘Serendipity Festival’. December is a busy month in Goa, with Christmas and the crazily crowded new year celebrations dominating the activities. Looks like it is going to be more and more crowded. 

I have posted some related pictures below. The shop is one of the many such shops selling Christmas decorations at the Panaji market. The truck is a mobile toilet truck at one of the venues of Serendipity. By the way, in keeping with my age, I tend to rate a place or an event by the access to and the cleanliness of the toilets. Serendipity gets a distinction here too !