Bringing back the flavour of the ‘Tinto’ culture in Goa, Club Harmonia de Margao has introduced a modern replica of a village marketplace through ‘The Margao Tinto,’ the second edition of which saw an overwhelming response on Saturday evening, witnesses Bharati Pawaskar
It reminds one, of the village ‘tinto’ that the niz Goenkars were familiar with for centuries. Cashing on the cultural concept, Club Harmonia de Margao has wisely reintroduced it to modern generation on the occasion of Sao Joao festival, making it a fun event. This is the second edition of the ‘Margao Tinto’ that this century-old club has organised on June 24, the first being held in June 2016. On Saturday afternoon over 2000 enthusiastic visitors from South Goa made it to the venue which was alive with the hustle and bustle, live music, buying and selling, meeting and greeting. It was a real ‘fest’ that left the visitors as well as the vendors satisfied to the brim.
“We had 25 mini stalls and five mega stalls set-up at the club premises and I am extremely happy that our concept of the ‘tinto’ has picked up so well. We had participants from across Goa, not only from South but even from the North, like Martha Silveira, who came all the way from Divar to sell her homemade items, as she had received overwhelming response last year with all her items getting sold by the end of the day,” briefs Amit Pinto, the young president of Club Harmonia who has shouldered the responsibility of the club since April 2016.
Soon after Amit took over the reign, he adventurously introduced the ‘tinto’ concept in June 2016 which is now a successful non-profit venture. “We do not intend to make any profit. Tinto is a non-commercial venture. Whatever is collected through the charges of the stalls is spent on the music, bands, decorations and food. We want to make this event a success,” quips Amit.
The Margao Tinto started as a platform for the young and elderly, for housewives, for beginners of the start-ups, students, artists, chefs, entrepreneurs who can gather and display the best that they have to offer - be it talent, art, agro products, homemade food stuff, organic produce, anything.
“A lot of talent remains confined in homes and household kitchens. There are home makers who are excellent cooks and make traditional food preparations that are slowly fading away from memory.
The bright, colourful and eye catching oil paintings drawn with pallet knife technique on canvas displayed at the very entrance at a place reserved for art galleries and Leonid Afremov’s paintings were there on the wall, just like last year. The prized paintings that cost Rs 20,000 to 25,000 attracted onlookers. At one side, the tattoo artists were seen busy tattooing, while foodies were seen digging their teeth into a traditional Portuguese custard tart, pastéis de nata, dashed with cinnamon, enjoyed it with a sip of coffee served with love by Marlene Meneses.
Martha Silveira from Naroa Divar was busy selling homemade pickles of brinjal, tendlim and lime, mango chutney and miskut, kokum syrup (brindao), vinegar, coconut oil, bombil para, prawn balchao, maida halva, pasteis de banana, culculm dodol, ghons, rawa laddoos, croquette, risois, binda sola and bread crumbs. “We accept bulk orders too,” said Martha who received a very good response both, last year as well as this year at the ‘tinto.’
Vanessa Gonsalves who runs ‘My Little Pumkin’ stores in Margao, displayed personalised items, especially for babies and kids. She embroiders names, wishes, etc, on towels, pillow covers, dresses, compass boxes, greeting cards, T-shirts and also has customised birthday cake toppers with names. Apart from selling through her own outlet, she relies on social media for bagging orders and participates in pop-up bazaars.
There were homemade cakes, pork pies, cookies, brownies, jams, desserts and farm produce at the stall that called itself ‘Dessert your Diet. Expert in baking butter and pepper cookies as well as triple chocolate cookies, Sandra and Divya had chocolate banana loaf of whole wheat and coffee walnut loaf too. There were caramel tart, sans-rival, brownie swirl and savories like empadinhas.
Homemade wines – ginger, beetroot, carrot, sweet lime, mangoes, jack fruit, kokum and jamun – all priced between Rs 250-450 were in demand. The mega stalls of Fondekar catering, Antonjitos Goa, Ola Home Delights, Dibs on Ribs and Vasquitos also pulled the crowds.
Sisters Miriam Gracias and Malaica Gracias from Chinchinim put up ‘It’s all about Paper’ stall with all personalised and customised handcrafted wooden home décor items, designer stationery, event accessories, signage boards, tissue paper boxes, trays, tea coasters, etc. A fine art graduate Miriam and her physiotherapist sister Malaica, are both passionate about creative art and making personalised invites, wedding cards and other products. “I have my design studio where a team of specialised woodcraft artisans and carpenters help us,” said Miriam. The tinto seemed like the most appropriate place to book orders for the creative, designer artwork.
Last year the club had two programmes, one was the tinto and the other was the Christmas market and both got overwhelming response, recalls Amit who is anxious to take ahead the concept of offering a platform for the lesser known entrepreneurs, homemakers, and start-ups in the form of a non-commercial, fun-filled market in one of the oldest clubs of Goa, keeping the trend of the village tinto alive.
