Maendra Alvares 

Conferred on Maendra Alvares in recognition of his enterprisingly unique and innovative commitment to recreate, project and conserve Goa’s eroding heritage in a life-size time capsule.

 After obtaining a degree in Fine Art, Maendra, in 1995, embarked on the ambitious ideal to recreate for the benefit of posterity, a 3-dimensional sanctuary of Goa’s iconic past.  The result has been ‘Ancestral Goa’, an open air museum in Loutolim, singularly envisioned and funded by Maendra on 9 acres of ancestral land, portraying various aspects of Goan life, artifacts, customs and traditions. 

Ancestral Goa was originally known as ‘Big Foot’, in homage of a large footprint discovered on a rock and reputed to be propitious.   A monumental landmark at the site is Maendra’s sculpture of the singing Sant Mirabai.  Carved out of laterite, it is the longest laterite sculpture in India, measuring 14 meters in length and 5 meters in width.  The project also depicts and documents in painstaking detail, the architectural evolution of Goan homes, the indigenous materials used, and the harmonious cohabitation of man and nature.

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Comment:

Conservation is collective consciousness and it must be inherent in our psyche before we can impose upon those in power to enforce it.  We live in an era where our existential needs are at constant conflict with nature’s prerogative to survive in its primordial majesty.  A realization of the natural environment we live in stimulates a sense of reverence, and through it, a genuine commitment to conserve it.   Lack of realization perpetuates indifference, and consequently the blueprints for plunder and irreversible devastation.

 

In the quest for conservation there needs to be, foremostly, a habitat of coexistence between demographic growth and the natural environment.  Both can mutually prevail if we effectively divest our genetic makeup of its inclination toward stoic and mindless greed.  Nonetheless, organizations such as Goa Bachao Abhiyan and the Goa Foundation serve as beacons in the conservation of the natural environment, orienting society’s indifference towards enlightenment, and in the process, become worthy of posterity’s gratitude

-Dom Martin