Prashant Miranda s artwork for the campaign. | Prashant Miranda.
The great Konkani laureate Balakrishna Bhagwant (Bakibab) Borkar once sought to explain why his tiny homeland of Goa has produced so many consequential artists. They range from the Hindustani classical vocalists Kesarbai Kerkar and Mogubai Kurdikar to the slew of jazz musicians – along with Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle – who consolidated “the sound of Bollywood”, as well as essential modernist painters like Francis Newton Souza, Vasudeo Gaitonde, and his cherished friend, the Shantiniketan exemplar Angelo da Fonseca.
Borkar credited this disproportionate effloresence to “the significance of Goa’s natural beauty”. He said, “So comfortably set up in such a rich aesthetic setting, the Goan consciously and unconsciously absorbs Nature’s varied promptings through all the pores. In the festival of colours and shapes and sounds and smells and touches and tastes afforded by the natur