The last Pilerne Thursday Heritage Market (PTHM), for the season, will be held on Thursday, 18th May, from 5 – 9 pm, at the St. John the Baptist Church Courtyard, Pilerne.
This time, the Market celebrates Goa's longing for her favourite, cooling, life-giving, food-producing, environment-healing monsoons. A soulful call: "Pausa, yo re yo!" sets the tone of the celebration!
After a scorching and sweaty summer, Goenkars wait expectantly for the cooling breezes and rejuvenating showers of the South West monsoons. Goans from all over, will welcome the monsoons with song, dance and heritage folklore about what the rains mean to an agricultural society, so intimately bonded with the fertile red soil of Goa. Committed to saving the planet, the PTHM is striving to be Zero Waste. Disposables are banned and visitors are encouraged to bring their own plates and cutlery. In keeping with government directives,
Single Use Plastics (SUPs) are also banned and most vendors use natural materials like banana, jackfruit and arecanut leaves, coconut shell, bamboo and earthenware to display products and serve food. They feel at home, because all areas of the Market are accessible to them The Market has a Food Court, where visitors can sit at tables and spend a warm, happy evening in groups or as families. Cooked in homely, vaddo kitchens, traditional Goan snacks, authentic heritage cuisine, age-old, village sweets and desserts, together with tea, coffee and soft drinks, fully satisfy veg, non-veg and vegan taste buds. There is foot tapping live music, nostalgic Konkani community singing and a tempting dancing space. Everything happens within the lip-smacking, finger-licking Food Court. And that makes for a truly relaxed, grassroots cultural experience that is not available at one venue, anywhere in Goa.
Health foods, artwork, handicrafts, embroidery, soaps and candles all made by the villagers, together with plants, a jumble sale and a Gift Economy counter, make the weekly PTHM a discerning shopper's, niche market. This vocal-for-local character of the heritage market, is designed to strengthen the grassroots, village economy. It ensures that employment and business starts from the kitchens, studios and little workshops in the vaddos, mainly of Pilerne. With an eye on equipping future generations, the PTHM is also a great platform for villagers, especially the young, to showcase different talents: singing, dancing, acting and compering
everything that they love to do, either as a hobby or as a career. The PTHM is a very intimate space, where culture, tradition, heritage and economics meet. It aims to keep local Pilernekars financially grounded in their vaddos, while being deeply rooted in the Goa, they all love so much.
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