Running Naked and Unmasked in Goa: Pleasure in the Pandemic

In November 2020, Indian celebrity Milind Soman posted a picture of himself on social media, which showed him running naked on a beach. He was charged with obscenity. This article considers the time and place of Soman’s act over the alleged impropriety. The photograph was taken on a beach in Goa, the tropical setting serving as a pleasure periphery to India which annexed the region in 1961. Accordingly, a longer history of states of undress in Indian advertising, filmmaking, and tourism are considered here to apprehend how Goa has been posited in the Indian imagination as a destination for wanton self-gratification while local realities are undermined. The article thus interrogates what it means for Goa, whose economy is overly dependent on tourism, to serve as a vacation spot during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when, in 2020, it had among the highest number of virus-related deaths in the country (Dias, 2020, par. 4). Using the metaphor of the celebrity who has no qualms about running naked and unmasked in Goa, this article enquires into what such events leave unrevealed in the economic requirement that some locales function as holiday destinations, even in the midst of a pandemic

The Music of Neoliberalism: “Only You” in Roger King’s A Girl from Zanzibar

Excerpt from the article: Marcella D’Souza arrives in England from Zanzibar with a vision. The Goan-Arab protagonist of Roger King’s A Girl from Zanzibar dreams of herself upstairs in “a fashionable London house..

(Un)Seeing Goa’s Bom Jesus in Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar’s This is Not the Basilica!

This article examines the interrogation of visual history associated with Goan church architectural legacies offered by Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar’s installation series, This is Not the Basilica! (2021). The artist’s subject is the 16th-century Basilica of Bom Jesus, which was built in locally domesticated Baroque style during Goa’s Portuguese colonial era and which houses the remains of the Spanish saint, Francis Xavier. Kandolkar’s work makes viewers intimate with the Basilica’s history, I contend, so as to posit the need for conservation efforts that will save the deteriorating church while also revealing its unseen aesthetic past as a symbol of still-unfolding Goan identity

I am a “Pure Goan” but there is No Such Thing: An Interview with Peter Nazareth

Conducted between February and April, 2017, this e-conversation with writer, literary critic, and professor Peter Nazareth engages him in topics of the Goan diaspora, Goan literature, as well as his own writing and criticism. As a writer of novels, radio plays, and short stories, and as a critic of multiple literatures, Nazareth is asked to reflect upon historical, personal, and other influences on his work, as well as the reception of it. In his responses, Nazareth draws from familial and personal history as a writer whose lived connections include East Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the West. Additionally, his perspective covers such moments of import as the end of colonialism in East Africa and the Asian expulsion from Idi Amin’s Uganda. He is also asked to comment upon the trajectory of twentieth and twenty-first century Goan literature as an early anthologist of writing by those of Goan origins in various parts of the world. In so doing, Nazareth recalls how he came to the work of writers Leslie de Noronha and Violet Dias Lannoy, the latter an author whose novel was published posthumously. Further, the gamut of issues covered include inter-communal socialities and antagonisms, literature and identity diversity, and the fraught terrain of claims to authenticity

Everyday: The Exquisite Intricate

Suppose I begin with the facts? A boy leaves his childhood home

Vamona Navelcar and the Carnation Revolution: The blossoming of change betwixt continents

Excerpt from publication: This year marks the 50th anniversary of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution. It was on vinte e cinco de Abril, Portuguese for that fateful date of April 25, 1974, that the dictatorial Estado Novo or New State regime (1933-1974) came to an end in a largely peaceful overthrow led by members of the army..

Book Review: Melo e Castro, Paul, editor. Lengthening Shadows: An Anthology of Goan Short Stories Translated from Portuguese.2 vols. Goa 1566 and Golden Heart Emporium, 2016.

In translating and compiling the 45 stories in this double volume, editor Paul Melo e Castro showcases the legacy of the Portuguese short story from erstwhile Goa Portuguesa. Between 1510 and 1961, Goa was the capital of Luso-Asia and the Estado da Índia Portuguesa. For Melo e Castro, the anthology functions as the autopsy of a dead literature, focused as it is on a corpus that spans the period between 1864 and 1987 (8)

Water Adsorption of Particleboard and Flakeboard

The amount of water adsorption (WA) determines the dimensional stability of particleboard and flakeboard. Regression models showed that WA is a function of relative humidity, resin type, and board specific gravity, as well as the thickness and slenderness ratio of the wood furnish. Those factors explained 95% of all variation in WA

Red Stone, Invisible Legacy: Goan Aesthetics in Charles Correa\u27s Design

Excerpt from publication: The obituary for Charles Correa (1930-2015) in the New York Times hails him as an \u27\u27American trained architect, who reached deep into India\u27s past for inspiration in producing work that is notable for its imagination and breadth. 1 Of course, Correa\u27s design practice drew from Indian traditions, including the use of the mandala, a sacred geometric configuration associated with Buddhism. The visibility of mandalas in the architect\u27s designs questions the alignment of his legacy with an Indianness that can only be understood as heralding a mythic Hindu past..

PERKIRAAN UMUR TRANSFORMATOR DISTRIBUSI DI EDTL CAI-COLI DILI (TIMOR-LESTE)

Penyebab berkurangnya umur transformator adalah pembebanan yang mengakibatkan meningkatnya temperatur pada transformator, sehingga menimbulkan panas berlebih. Hal ini akan merubah sifat konstruksi bagian-bagian dari transformator, karena pada setiap kenaikan temperatur sekitar 6°C dari batas yang diizinkan akan mengakibatkan berkurangnya umur transformator tersebut. Penelitian ini membahas pengaruh pembebanan, pengaruh suhu lingkungan terhadap sisa umur transformator tenaga di Edtl Cai-Coli Dili (Timor-Leste) dengan mengacu pada standar IEC 354 tahun 1972. Hasil penelitian pada transfromator yang berkapasitas 315 kVA diperoleh sisa umur sebesar 0,9085 jam /hari dan dalam tahun sebesar 17,85 (tahun), sedangkan  untuk transformator yang berkapasitas 400 kVA diperoleh sisa umur transformator sebesar 1,6143 jam /hari dan dalam tahun sebesar 17,30 (tahun).