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HOW ABOUT A HEALTHCARE FESTIVAL NOW!
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HOW ABOUT A HEALTHCARE FESTIVAL NOW!

Jan 17- Jan 23, 2026, ON MY OWN January 16, 2026 , by

MANY popularly call him “mama” – the fascinating grand man of the Tarun Bharat Group of Companies, Kiran Thakur, who is equally engaged in doing some incredibly good work to give back to society and to bring it back to its roots or so to speak. I would happily describe him as a Rabindranath Tagore of Konkan coast! “Mama Kiran Thakur is equally at home I imagine in Pune in Maharashtra and Belgaum in Karnataka and Goa of course where the best selling Marathi daily is still the “Tarun Bharat.”
 It was a treat to catch up with him and he definitely needs interviewing about on life and living, not just for “Ocean of Stories” Goa Book Festival which is happening at the Bandodkar Grounds, Panaji, Goa from February 4 to 8, next month. According to daughter Sai Thakur who was at the National Book Trust-cum-Lokmanya Multipurpose Co-Operative Society press conference held at the Sahitya Sevak Mandal hall at the Institute Menezes Braganza on January 8, 2026 there’re going to be something like 300 stalls with books from the country over; in fact the it’s going to be five in one mega book festival – book festival, literary festival, kids festival, cultural festival and what else, also a food festival.
Definitely something to look forward to make a note in your diary about the Goa Book Festival coming up. Kiran Thakur in his brief talk said Goa is becoming a state of festivals so why not a festival of books too? Yes, indeed, why not. I told him we have had all kinds of festivals in Goa except a healthcare festival and perhaps Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant will think about this next, once he’s done promoting Goan food festival and all kinds of other festivals up and down capital city Panjim’s Babasaheb Bandodkar premier marg, otherwise called the Campal promenade by Ponjekars. It’s the only one road which is pretensions of maintenance by the PWD people!
PERSONALLY, my dears, I have said this before and will say it till my dying day! I wish the wonderful heritage premises of the old Goa Medical Hospital would be put to healthcare usage rather than all manner of entertainment festivals…I imagine it could prove to be a much welcomed and much-needed sanitarium where seniors may go and relax and recover with a slew of alternate therapies – given the sunshine, salt and time.
Goa needs not just a hospital for seniors and children alone but also a sanitarium where they may rejuvenate and recover fully with healthcare of another kind, say naturopathy, Ayurveda…entire AYUSH roll-call. Today, I find there’s nobody to give me a massage for Rs300 to Rs500 if not utterly free! A humble massage is Rs2,000 plus, plus. Father of Ayurveda Lord Dhanvantari must be curling up in shame somewhere…and don’t laugh but I’m firmly convinced now that once you’re in a hospital for some major treatment, it helps if post-hospital stay you can spend some time in a sanitarium. A wellbeing facility where you may follow a regime of rest and recreation to recover fully. Who agrees with me!
Even Goa’s doctor fraternity never thinks of reclaiming the hallowed old GMC in Panjim for healthcare usage, they could come together and lobby for a sanitarium for seniors and children if they want to and it would be a fit thing to do considering the history of this Portuguese era legacy. Is there no one dynamic enough to swing this?
Well, I will never tire of imagining what a heaven on earth it would be if the old GMC and the Maquinez Palace complex reverts to healthcare use…after all isn’t this why the loving Maquinez family donate the property? For healthcare, not entertainment! I wish some powers-that-be in Goa present would think about this if they care about life and times and what havoc it wreaks upon senior citizens!

AT THE GREEN GLOW FESTIVAL

THIS was one very special festival and I don’t know how to write about it because it was so awesome to see the screening of tortoise man filmmaker Suhas Premkumar awesome film on the life and times of yes…frogs of Goa and the Western Ghats. There is surely very little Suhas Premkumar doesn’t know about frogs, some 60 strong species living in Goa and the Western Ghats water bodies. Who would think frogs in the wild live such desperate lives!
This is one award-winning film — “Little Planet: A Tale of Frogs” — which Suhas shared it took ten years to film. Honestly, I’m in two minds about whether one should photograph frogs or any wildlife engaged in their mating and breeding moments, but hell’s bells, what a poignant and educative wildlife film this is. After seeing it, one may stop thinking of frogs as mere “jumping chicken” prized food of Goans. Hunting for frogs is banned now although I dare say come the monsoon months there are those who will hunt down bullfrogs …they are an endangered species. Don’t eat them please, give them right of way, please.
Sorry, I’m referring to the Green Glow festival here organized by the Green Ray Foundation, Goa Biodiversity Board and Goa Department of Art & Culture at the Multi-Purpose Hall at the Sanskriti Bhavan at Patto, Panjim, on January 10, 2026. This is one festival I would have loved to have stayed on for the whole day.
However, in a nutshell, the Green Ray Foundation is being revived and executed by tiatr couple Tomazino Cardozo and wife Irene and like-minded friends of wildlife (Pravin Sabnis, Willy Goes, Prakash Kamat, Arti Kulkarni, Neeraj Prabhu, some more) is really the brainchild of the late Maria Pinto, who even left funds behind for the organization to be active and not comatose! Or so Tomazinho Cardozo shared with me a bit. The organization has been keenly conducting green skilling workshops, video editing, exhibitions, film screenings…in schools, engaging with eco clubs, children with disability and so on, all for the larger good of saving Goa from being destroyed in a myriad ways! That’s my interpretation, my dears. These days everyone I meet is concerned about deaf, dumb and blind destructive development instead enlightened development or something like that.
May more such Green Glow environment festivals come up and if you can be sure to catch up with Suhas Premkumar’s film on frogs of the Western Ghats, as also other wildlife films (Arti Kulkarni has a film on “Turtles with antenna”)…sorry, I had to skip it and also the valedictory keynote speech by the very dedicated Dr Pradeep Sarmokkadam. The Maria Claudete Pinto Memorial Green Commitment Award was conferred on artist Alexyz Fernandes this year.
ON that note it’s avjo, selamat datang, poite verem, au revoir, arrivedecci, hasta la vista and vachun yeta here for now. It’s still not too late to make a new resolution to do your bit to save Goa’s “asmitai.” I dare say if we can save the habitat of frogs, let them to copulate to their hearts’ content in the wild…we have pretty much saved Goa’s wild places and along with that perennially life-giving air, earth and water. Not joking. In life we have forgotten how to make connections and tend to live in our fake bubbles of happiness!

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