Focalpoint SFX

For six days between 17th and 22nd November 2008, the St. Francis Xavier Higher Secondary School in Siolim (generally referred to as SFX) had ten eager and enthusiastic participants working hard on making their own digital short stories. The participants sailed through the 'Test Drive DST' session on the first day, facing head-on the intricacies of Movie Maker and the challenge to make a 1-minute story based on photos and music provided to them. Most participants were able to finish their 'mini-DST' projects in the 2 hours allotted to them. Of course, some fine tuning like managing audio volumes or visual transitions would have required much more time, but that didn't matter since the idea was more to give the participants a hands-on of the DST process and less to have them come out with a technically and artistically perfect product. After all, there would be ample time later in the workshop for them to perfect their skills. Here are two samples of the outputs of this exercise:

'A Life of A Girl' by Velisha Araujo


'Truth of Life' (in Hindi) by Roshan Salgaonkar


In the weeks before the workshop and during the initial DST presentation from GoCreat, Fr. Paul Sagayam, Principal of SFX, had been a big help to us - not just in welcoming the idea of having the workshop, but also making sure we got all the onsite support we needed to set up the lab in preparation for the workshop. This is what Fr. Sagayam had to say when he paid a brief visit on Day-1 of the workshop:



In the days that followed, the participants made drawings, told their stories, wrote and rewrote scripts, travelled around Siolim taking photos for their stories, did the storyboarding, and finally made their stories into short films using Movie Maker. Their indivudual stories follow...

'The Riverside' by Cheryl Mascarenhas


'My Village and Me' by Claricia D'Souza


'Beyond Your Wildest Imagination' by Denzil Gomes


'A Thinker's Paradise' by Fiona D'Cruz


'My Eighth Wonder' by Hortencia Pereira


'Vacation in Majali' by Prajakta Sail


'Nature Lover' by Richa Pednekar


'Heaven of Water' by Rochelle Fernandes


'The Playground' by Roshan Salgaonkar


'Trees' by Velisha Araujo


As in previous workshops, the whole process was as uplifting and exciting to the GoCreat facilitators as it was for the participants, and we thank our young participants and the school for this. On the last day, we decided to give a video camera to the students to play around with and also to record for us their feedback; from the footage it certainly looked like they had a good time with the camera. As for the feedback, if only they had kept the mike on... :) But we used their raw video clips, added our own footage from the previous days and made a 3 and a half minute video which I think brings out the fun we had at the workshop. Here it is:

Test Driving Movie Maker

One of the ideas that came out of the brainstorming that happened within the GoCreat group, after the Holy Cross DST Workshop, was to have the participants get their hands dirty with Movie Maker right on day one - go through the whole process of making a DST, based on material that we would provide. Get the technology barrier out of the way (not much of a barrier for these youngsters I must say) and acquaint yourself well with the steps that you would be following while making the 'real' Digital Story. Since the second DST workshop that we planned to conduct in Siolim (at SFX Higher Secondary School) was fast approaching, it was decided to apply this idea there.

And so was conceived the 'DST Test Drive'. Based on a maximum of four images (from a set of 10) that the participants would be asked to select, they would write a script, record it in their voices, select a background music (from a set of four pieces), put all this in a Movie Maker project and churn out a short 1 minute film, all in 2 hours flat. A recipe for disaster? What better way to find out than to try it within the group.

So we decided to hold a 2 hour session on Movie Maker for GoCreators, on Wed 22nd Oct at ICG; 6 people signed up for the test drive. We used the 'Production Kits' from the Holy Cross Workshop as the raw material - these were participant-wise folders created during the workshop, containing (for each participant) the audio recording of his/her narration, the photos and the background music that went into the DST. Having this ready-made meant that the test drivers could focus completely on Movie Maker alone and wouldn't have to spend time on other activities. The session went quite well and gave us the confidence to proceed with the planned 'Test Drive DST' module in the next workshop, at SFX.

Digital Storytelling at Holy Cross

When Holy Cross High School, Siolim turned 75 years old it tuned on into an ancient learning approach and combined it with sophisticated modern technology – the digital story. The digital story is a media artifact. It is a personal narrative that enables new approaches to reflection and engagement from our story teller students. It is made from digital images and sounds. Selected students of the school participated in a hands on and minds on Digital Story Telling Workshop from August 18 to 23, 2008 facilitated by Gocreat.

Our little story tellers spent six enthusiastic fun-filled and intensely serious afternoons and have produced for us their little stories. “My favorite place” was the theme and the students were free to craft the story just as they wished. The digital stories they made invite us to enter their intimate world ranging from their living room at home, to the bounty that Mother Nature has given Siolim - the springs and rivulets and one of the presiding deity of Siolim – Sateri. You will see that our little citizens indeed have their heads, minds and values in the right place. At the end of the workshop we are optimistic about all that is central to life and love, to humanity and its survival. No words can be a substitute to experiencing the films of these young people.

Here are the final cuts of their short films...

'Sateri Mai' (in Marathi) by Alisha Govekar


'My House in the Past' by Bryan Britto


'Zhar' (in Konkani) by Delaila Fernandes


'My Beautiful House' by George Monteiro



'When I First Caught a Fish' by Michael Fernandes


'Vhal Mhozo Ixtt' (in Konkani) by Nabila D'Souza


'The Ground and Me' by Rowena Petters


'Ticketless in Borivali Park' by Sharon Sebastian


'My Dream - Football' by Valencia Braganza


'My Living Room' by Yohann Fernandes

Learning Digital Storytelling, our first results

by Salil Konkar

As mentioned in previous posts, the GoCreat and Siolim Diaries groups had merged sometime in January to learn and explore multimedia techniques; as one of the outcomes of this, we had decided to learn Digital Storytelling, with the objective of providing the group with a platform to learn and experiment with basic film-making techniques as well as to build capabilities within the group to document village stories in an audiovisual format, something that has been one of the main interests of the Siolim Diaries group.

For the Digital Storytelling workshops, Milan, Gasper and I planned some sessions and we conducted them first over two consecutive days in February (27^th and 28^th) and then at regular intervals based on the availability of the participants and the progress made by the participants with their individual stories. Though we started out with around 9 people in the group, the number started dwindling as participants found it more and more difficult to devote time for this, mostly due to academic or work pressures, though some may also not have found the whole concept very interesting. We finally ended with just two participants – Sammit and Preeti – who finished scripting and storyboarding their digital stories by April. Preeti managed to collect all the visual material as well, and we recorded her voice-over on April 11. After that, we spent a few more sessions working on her ideas for the film and finalising how it should be made. With all the material that we had on Preeti’s story, I spent a couple of days putting it together in the editing software and producing the film. So by the first week of May, we had our first digital story ready! The group met on May 6th for a screening of Preeti’s short three minute film, and discussed it while playing it over and over again.

Click below to see Preeti's film.

Big Bellies and the Invisible Seed

by Milan Khanolkar
(inspired by a trip to the weekly Wednesday market in Siolim)

On the banks of a river there was a village. The village covered itself with greenery, lived in its own world with little care. Its greenery was its life; people from across the river visited the village for this. Experiencing the living greenery of the village would make the visitors connect with the freshness within them. Someone discovered the poet within her; another found the painter or poet within himself. For yet another it kindled the writing muse and for some others the joy they had within. Some visitors stayed back while others returned to where they came from.

One day a boat arrived in this village with five people on it. They had large stomachs with overgrown paunches that reached their feet. The moment they touched their feet on land they felt a burning hunger within. They felt as if they wanted to eat everything edible and alive in the entire village there and then. They allowed this feeling to get the better of them and promptly starting feasting in and on the village. They kept eating till they had consumed the small farmers, their land, their cattle and their families too. The small farmers were the village protectors and once they were consumed there was no one left to protect the village. Then with enthusiastic frenzy they ate up all the traditions, the symbols, the deities and the religiosity of the village. Their stomachs were so large that no matter how much they ate, their stomachs expanded to fit what they ate. Once they had eaten many hills in one go. How long could it take them to finish this village? After they had consumed the village they rubbed their hands on their stomachs and said there is nothing left, so let us depart now.

Once they were in their boat, ready to leave, an ugly bird came and whispered in their ear. They decided to change their decision to leave. The bird told them that there was still something left in the village and unless they consume that too, they cannot return to where they had come from. Once a week, in a sacred place the village deity would come with a basket of seeds. The village deity is visible only to the villagers and the villagers alone can collect seeds from the deity. These big bellied now realized that had they spared the villagers they could have used them to get the seeds from the village deity and then had the seeds too. But now that the villagers were no more how were they to get the seeds? The deity too, sitting in her place, began to worry as to why the villagers were not coming to collect seeds.

And so the deity keeps waiting, hoping that at least one villager will come to collect seed. The big bellied too cannot leave the village till they eat the remaining seed.

Exploring the 'Market'

by Salil Konkar

Over the course of a month or so, for the ‘Market’ project, some of us from the combined Siolim Diaries and GoCreat group made trips to the Wednesday market in Siolim and spoke to a few of the local vendors there - two women selling coconuts and brooms, another selling pottery that she makes at home. While talking to the potter (Luisa) we asked her if we could some see her at her workplace while she was working - she was most willing, and a week later, on 8th February, we were at her place interviewing her while watching her making the pots. She took us around and also showed us the kiln where she fires the pots and her other clay ware. We learnt that besides selling at the Siolim market on Wednesdays, she also sells in the Calangute market that runs on Saturdays.

On Saturday 9th February, we were at the Calangute market. We saw Luisa sitting close to the entrance of the market, with more stuff than she brings to sell at Siolim (sales are better at Calangute because of the larger tourist crowds there). We walked through the crowded market amidst the loud yelling of fisherwomen and vegetable vendors, and the mechanical sound of a machine pressing juice out of sugarcane.

Having gathered some raw material for making a short film, the next thing on our minds was – how do we put all this together? That’s when we found out about the Centre for Digital Storytelling, based out of Berkeley California, which conducts workshops in digital storytelling, and which has also published on their site a ‘cookbook’ for conducting similar workshops. We found the techniques that they used most interesting and decided to follow them to learn digital storytelling as a group. This would provide the group with a platform to learn and experiment with basic film-making techniques as well as build the capabilities within the group to digitally document village stories in an audiovisual format, which has been one of the objectives of the Siolim Diaries project.

Rahul Srivastava Speaks

Rahul spoke to the Siolim Diaries group as well as members of the GoCreat group on 21st Jan 08.

Click here to see details and listen to the audio recording.

Synergising with GoCreat

by Salil Konkar

Around mid-January 2008, the Siolim Diaries group decided to work with the GoCreat group to make it possible for a larger set of participants to learn multimedia and digital storytelling techniques. GoCreat was initiated by Gasper DeSouza and Alito Siqueira, and since the Siolim Diaries also involved using multimedia techniques for documenting village stories, it made sense to work together. Gasper is a photojournalist by profession and Alito is a Sociologist at Goa University who is also advisor to the Siolim Diaries project.

After spending a couple of sessions analysing and finalising which stories to tell, we decided to work on the idea of a 'Market' - the village marketplace where locals from the area come to sell a myriad of home-grown produce and handcrafted wares, how their livelihoods are getting affected by the changing trends in consumerism and the onset of large commercial supermarkets that offer similar goods at cheaper prices, what are their survival strategies, how long they’ll last...

The Rope Maker from Kerala

by Salil Konkar

During our first visit to Siolim, when we were looking at the farmers working in the paddy fields, Stacy had mentioned about this person who had migrated from Kerala and had set up a rope making workshop in Siolim, just across the paddy fields. We had decided that it would be interesting for all of us to meet him; accordingly, Stacy set up a meeting with him at his home, which is in the same premises as his rope-making unit, for 14^th Jan 2008.

And so there we were, at Mr. Joseph Vadakel's workshop, talking to him about his decision to move to Siolim from Kerala (not a very obvious choice I thought – most Keralaites would have preferred to move to the Gulf, just as many people from Siolim do too), his experiences in Siolim and more specific information about – you guessed it – rope making!

Mr. Joseph took us through his life in Goa, which had spanned more than three decades already, how he came to a boarding school in Guirim as a student, took up a teaching position later (he taught physics), and later set up the rope-making unit that he was kind enough to walk us through, explaining to us and showing us firsthand the entire rope-making process. It was interesting to note that the raw material for the rope was brought in all the way from Kerala and not from Goa or other neighbouring areas.

The Minimalists and the Outsider

by Salil Konkar

The Wednesday market in Siolim – noisy, colourful, crowded, even if it’s tiny in size compared to the Friday market in Mapusa. It starts at 7 in the morning every Wednesday and by 10 the show is over. Milan likened this ephemeral existence to the Cinderella story, my own thoughts weren’t too different – it seemed like a play that performs once a week – the stage is set, the performers troop in, the onlookers gather around – some even participating in the play, and the action begins. All for three hours, after which the curtains come down, the artists pack up and leave and everyone is back to being what they were. The street on which the market just happened returns to its original state, as if nothing had happened at all.

So what do they sell at this market, and who are these people who sell such myriad stuff in such unbelievably small quantities? Small packets of seeds, a handful of sweet potatoes and radishes, a dozen raw mangoes, a few coconuts – it seemed as if they were just selling extra stuff that they couldn’t use in their own homes, and it certainly didn’t look like they were growing vegetables for business. I decided to buy some ‘padwal’ and asked the woman selling it to give me a quarter kilo, only to be informed by a kindly gentleman who was also buying from her that things were not sold by weight, just counted and sold according to how much money was being paid. So I changed by request to 20 rupees worth of ‘padwal’; a cursory glance at other stalls told me that the gentleman was quite right – none of the local vegetable vendors had any weighing scales or measures. Except the guy with the largest vegetable stall, who had ‘outsider’ written all over his face.

There used to be a joke doing the rounds when I was living in New Zealand – ‘Why don’t Indians do well in football? Because whenever they get a corner, they decide build a shop on it!’ This ‘outsider’ looked like he could fit the description of the immigrant Indian in the joke; never miss an opportunity to make money where one exists, even if it’s only once a week for 3 hours, at the risk of having to put up with the condescending attitude of the local vendors. To his credit, he seemed to be doing really well; business was brisk and the turnover rapid. And it looked like most buyers didn’t care that he was not a local, after all how different could a vegetable from Belgaum be to one home-grown in the village?

Who else? A potter, a butcher and a bhajiya seller. The potter by her own admission comes to the market every week without any expectations of making a sale, more out of habit and to continue maintaining her space in the market than anything else. Any sale would probably be considered a bonus. Sure enough, for the hour that we were there, I didn’t see anyone even venture near her, leave alone buy any of the beautiful clay pots and urns she was selling.

The bhajiya seller had strategically positioned himself right in the middle of the small market, and from the looks of it, was doing good business.

The butcher was chopping away furiously at large slabs of meat in a makeshift tent from where he operated, as if his life depended on it (maybe it did too).

So many different things being sold in so small a market, for such short a time. There was even a stall selling combs, cheap toys and other ‘novelty items’. As Milan found out after some questioning, for most of the local vendors, this was the only market they would sell in; they didn’t feel the need to expand their business by selling at other places or in a regular daily market. Talk of being a minimalist, this way of working almost defied any logic for me, yet I found it admirable.

Introducing Stacy

by Stacy Mascarenhas

My name is Stacy Mascarenhas, I am presently doing my M.A. in Sociology at Goa University. I am a member of the Goa-Nara Neighbourhood project.

What made me take up this project is that even though I have been staying in Siolim since birth there are many things which I am not aware of and this project gives me a chance to explore and understand my village in a much better way.

What strikes me the most is that even though Siolim is such a small village it is bound by a lot of tradition and cultural backing.

About Blogs and Bloggers

by Salil Konkar

Monday 7th Jan '08, the Siolim team meets for an update. Besides catching up on the progress made on the project, the more important part of the meeting is to understand how blogs are created and how to post to the blog, since we'd already decided to use this method to document and share our thoughts and observations while working onthe project. Using a projector and a laptop connected to the internet, we have a look at the Siolim Diaries blog (this one) that I'd created a couple of weeks ago. I explain to the team how to post text and images to the blog and we spend the next thirty minutes or so penning our thoughts in our diaries, the idea being that we should be able to post one of these texts to the blog right away so that the entire blogging process is clear to everyone in the team. While the others write away, I spend the time taking some pictures that we can include in the text.

We choose Lorraine's introduction of herself as the piece to upload, and after I crop one of the photos that I'd just taken to get an image of her, Lorraine and Stacy post the text to the blog (the photo doesn't go through because of some connection problems - I upload it from home later).

We then discuss the future course of action for the project, and agree to chase a few leads that we already have and to try and create some new ones to document stories from the village. During our previous trip on 31st Dec, we had met a family in the village, one of whose members was an elderly woman about to turn hundred! Would she share her stories about the village with us? We decided to meet her again to find out on our next trip, which we scheduled for Wednesday 9th Jan to coincide with the day of the weekly market in Siolim.

Introducing Lorraine

by Lorraine Fernandes

My name is Lorraine Fernandes, I'm presently doing my M.A. in the Sociology department at Goa University. I am a part of the Goa Nara Neighbourhood project. I got involved in this project as I found this project very interesting. Another motive behind joining this project was that I would also get to know and learn a lot of new things during the course of this project. As I come from Siolim it is an added advantage for me; being from the same village I can contribute something for my village by making it famous throughout the world through this project.

As a team we had our first trip on 21st December, which was very exciting for me because for the first time in my life I became a guide to myself and also for my team members.

The Siolim 'Zagor'

by Reyna Sequeira

Salil, Milan and I attended the traditional zagor festival at Siolim. The zagor was held this year on 31st December 2007 at Gude–Vaddo in Siolim. The zagor is jointly organized by the Christians as well as the Hindus of Siolim. There was a big fair surrounding the area of the maand. People lit a lot of candles and offered flower garlands to a place where there was a small ghumti (small temple). Zagor is staged at the Zagreshwar temple. There was a big crowd in the temple; the vehicles had to be parked at a distance and we had to walk for around 10-15 minutes to the actual place of the maand. There is a small gathering which proceeds to the Zagreshwar temple from both the sides of the temple which is termed as suvaari. We proceeded towards the northern side of the temple to come along with the suvaari. We enquired from the local people about the actual place of the suvaari and we realized that some people did not have much knowledge about the same. When we went to one of the local houses to enquire, the family living there urged us to come and dine with them. The food was already laid on their table. It contained both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. The family treated us warmly in their house. They narrated to us about how for the past 2-3 years the suvaari from this particular ward had been banned from entering the Zagreshwar temple due to some tension in the village. We had a quick meal with this family and chatted with them for some time. We then proceeded towards the site of the suvaari. It was at St. Anthony’s chapel. A big crowd had gathered which included Catholics and Hindus. Some men were beating drums and one young man had entered into a trance. People were shouting 'Don’t leave our children' 'Amchea bhurgeank soddun vochun naka deva.' I was amazed. We were all lost in the crowd. I climbed a newly constructed house near the chapel and climbed on top of it so that I could get a clear picture of what was happening in the chapel. Some women gathered in the chapel and the in a trance just came running out from the chapel and was dancing with the beating of the drums. Married women from the surrounding houses were offering sannas – a sweet made from rice, sur (toddy from coconut palm) and coconut which is a speciality of the village – to the possessed person. The person in the trance was considered as God. Some people were objecting to our clicking photographs but one gentleman told those people to just move so that I could click pictures. Later, an announcement was made to the people to not click pictures of the possessed person. At one point of time the possessed person ran away from the crowd where people made way for him.

Later we moved to the place of the maand. I saw many Catholic women participating in the zagor. I asked the women whether they had not gone for the midnight mass on New Year’s eve - they told me no they will be going the next day in the morning. When we went to the maand both Catholics and Hindus were singing and performing on the stage at Zagreshwar temple.

These zagor were being performed at various places in Goa, but it did not have a very high status in Goa and since they were performed usually in the night there were different things that used to occur. In such zagor the neighbour would be criticized, which girl or boy is in love with whom and other social issues used to be taken up in the zagor. Siolim Marna used to have three zagor first in Vaddy Keri but this has stopped since many years. Second in Marna in the church ward where the Catholics used to perform wherein they used to play the ghumot and madllim and perform in this zagor. It was usually performed on the day of the feast or on the carnival day till recently. And the third is Gudde zagor which is prevalent till date. The leaders of this zagor are the village elders later who will keep the tradition alive. Whole night there is a lot of gambling activity which takes place.

The Tiatr that is performed in the zagor is more like that of a natak (Hindu drama).The people play ghumot and madim, sing songs, make a lot of noise and take a procession from the road to a place called Maand wherein there is a stage. They climb there and start singing and dancing followed by a suvaari(procession).In this suvaari only the males participate followed the leader of the zagor the zagorio who is always a Hindu comes with another suvaari. Then there is a custom called Barboria wherein they make a circle and dance on the stage. Then comes the Mavonni(wherein the men are dressed like the women) among this women there is one male. This is followed by a king who comes with his sword who dances on the stage and later followed by the bhonvor. The specialty of this zagor is although the Hindu brethren celebrate the zagor the songs which are sung are usually of the Christians.