Goa Carnival Festival
Quick
Facts
Celebrated in : Goa
Capital : Panaji
Festival Time : February
Duration : 3 Days
Presided by : King Momo
Highlights : Colourful processions and healthy ambience
totted by great fun and frolic
Goa Carnival - A Musical Extravaganza
The best time to travel to Goa is during February because this is the time
when one witnesses Goa getting decked up for the carnival. Goa carnival is
an eagerly awaited occasion where one forgets his worries and tensions and
simply plunges into merriment and joy-making for three whole days.
Goa carnival is all about fun and frolic. Colorful processions and lavish
floats parade the streets. Singing, dancing and masked people mark the
uproarious and flamboyant Goan celebration. Most of the countries have
carnivals but Goa carnival stands apart as the people of Goa have inculcated
different items in the carnival that makes us experience the different
shades of Goa.
The carnival in Goa had its birth during the era of King
Momo. He ushered in the Goa carnival just before the Lent season (Lent is
the period of fasting and penance in the Christian calendar and
corresponding somewhat to the Mohammedan fast before Ramzan Id). This
festival of Goa usually starts off on Sabado Gordo (Fat Saturday) and
concludes on Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday)-the eve of Ash Wednesday, which is
the first day of the season of Lent.
The streets are crowded for three days and it is nothing but a carnival of
colors, a carnival of fun and a carnival of joy for the people of Goa as
well as the tourists who make it a point to plan their Goa tour during that
time.
Among
all the festivities and feasts of Goa Carnival and Shigmo are the most
boisterous ones with great acclaim and enthusiasm anticipated by the mass
with great fervour and excitement. Carnival in Goa is round-the-clock 3-day
festival of color, song and music, providing a healthy amusement for all,
young and old. For three days and nights, the fabled king Momo takes over
the state and the streets become active with colour. The week long event is
a time of festivity and enjoyment. The carnival renders an amusing aura in
which everyone sings, laughs and dances on the tunes of music.
Street Plays, songs, dances, and impromptu travesties jeer and display
their dances and songs before a crazy and amendable audience. The popular
cradle songs and nursery rhymes with colourful attires worn make the
atmosphere as well streets more jovial. Innumerable competitions and
cultural functions are held right through the three days. The contestants
wear colorful costumes and designer masks. In such fun-filled surroundings
people smear color on each other, instead of the flour, eggs, fruit and
water that used to be used in past.
The carnival is not celebrated anywhere else in India and was in diminution
even in Goa in the past few years of Portuguese rule. Its resurgence with
the freeing of Goa, and a hike to its tourism attracted thousands of
tourists to Goa from all over the world every year!