Rejoice, it’s Sao Joao

Preeti Verma Lal

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Take a carnation. A hibiscus. A bunch of grapes. Two guavas. Green foliage. Palm leaves. Pick anything fresh off the orchard. Spare the jackfruit and papaya, please. Head to the garden and pluck the brightest flowers. Now, plait those into a wreath. Quite like the Crown of Thorns that Jesus Christ wore. Wear the crown like a proud king. Wait, do not rummage the closet for the velvet cape and the finest leather shoe. Ladies, no make-up today. Don’t waste the expensive mascara. It will bleed in the well, anyway. The drill is not over, yet. Flex a few muscles and recap the swimming lessons. For today, everyone shall jump into the well or a rivulet.

This is no preparation for a fancy dress competition. Nor readying for an acrobatic stunt in the water. This is how Goa celebrates its monsoon festival, Sao Joao (St John) and the crown and the leap into the well are customary. That mandatory leap of faith into a water body borrows from the Biblical story St John jumping with joy in his mother St Elizabeth’s womb when Virgin Mary came visiting. The devout’s leap of joy is a re-enactment of St John’s leap in the womb. The crown harks back to the old tradition of welcoming the newly wed at the bride’s house groom with a crown of flowers.

In the beginning, Sao Joao was celebrated around wells and rivulets. Now, wells are also created temporarily by digging land and filling it with water. In swank hotels, swimming pools double up as wells for the festival. Merrymakers bring along feni, a cashew/coconut alcoholic drink, and dance in the wells. As a run-up to the monsoon festival, music fests are organised and the air in the kitchen gets heavy with the aroma of pataleo, a traditional sweetmeat made of rice powder, grated coconut, cardamom powder and jaggery wrapped in turmeric leaf and steamed.

The Goa Tourism Development Corporation organises a dance/entertainment show aboard the Santa Monica boat. Every Goan neighbourhood has its own version of Sao Joao but nothing can beat the hullabaloo of the festivities in Siolim. All around there is the clamour of the pious and the revellers in crowns can be seen humming a song and tapping their feet to Konkani beats, boats are decked sedulously for the Rs 25,000 prize. On the big stage, there’s traditional music and dance. One boat has an innocuous fiber crocodile with an orange mouth; on another a peacock dances amid white mushrooms. A large cross is wrapped in yellow marigold while a clay mommy duck and her clay ducklings strut around in the placid waters. A swan stands in a corner and a big fat toad drowns head first.

To the crescendo of Viva Sao Joao, everyone leaps into the lake. Dark clouds gather, fat raindrops fall slantingly, feni is shared and St John is invoked on his feast, the festival of Sao Joao.