Mangalore: Delicious end to KACES-ICP 'Saamarasya'
Pics: Brijesh Garodi
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (VM)
Mangalore, Feb 18: The third edition of Saamarasya, a two-day festival of food and culture for peace jointly organized by Karnataka Christian Educational Society (KACES), Mangalore and Interfaith Coalition of Peace (ICP), New Delhi concluded on a high note at KACES grounds here on Sunday February 17.
The second day featured food festival 'Aaharotsava', which was inaugurated by Kasargod Chinna, president of Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy.
H Sharma Nithyanandam, regional coordinator of Interfaith Coalition for peace, Tamil Nadu was the guest of honour while Dr Hannibal Cabral, secretary of KACES presided over the function.
Inaugurating the fest, Kasargod Chinna lauded the organizers for the excellent concept aimed at fostering peace. "I have never seen nor have I been part of such a programme, which is specially organized to promote peace," he said.
Lauding the concept, Chinna urged the organizers to hold it every year and assured his support on behalf of the Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy.
Speaking on the works undertaken by the Academy, he said the Academy strives to attract people not only from the Konkani speaking community but also of other languages. "Hence for this purpose, the Academy is organizing a special programme called ‘Konkani Abhiman’ on February 22 where non-Konkani speaking people will try to learn Konkani."
Sharma Nithyanandam in his address conveyed a message on peace and said that peace is a life that offers opportunity to achieve prosperity and happiness. "We all are agents of peace and god wants the world to be a place without hatred," he said.
"We should be peace makers and not peace keepers," said Sharma, "Peace makers are those who appreciate others and work on building unity among people, whereas peace keepers never bother about conflict nor about the reality existing in the society."
Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, he said, "The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace."
Dr Hannibal Cabral thanked the supporters and sponsors of the programme and said that the main purpose of organizing this food festival was to make people not to forget the traditional food of the region.
Prior to the stage programme, Konkani Bhavageetha was presented by Srilatha and group of Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy.
The stage programme was followed by an electrifying dance performance by the students of Hebich technical school.
As part of the food festival more than 150 traditional homemade food items were exhibited in creatively decorated stalls, which created the right mood for the festival.
Different stalls like Kori center (chicken dishes), mutton center (mutton items), Kadala Bari (sea food), Paramana (Payasa), Uppad Shop (pickle), Asar junction (softdrinks), chutney thali, Rottida Kotya (roti items) were put up.
There were several games stalls at the venue as well, with games like casino ring, dice game, fish net, deal or no deal, dart game, shooting and others.
Guests started pouring in slowly and steadily and the venue was fully packed by the time the event began. Overall, the programme was a huge success.