GOA:
Goa witnessed an alternate kind of carnival away from the urban celebrations – a green carnival at Goa’s serene Ashvem beach. See Sharp Fest India’s first ever-sustainable living and learning festival is presently underway at Ashwem beach, Goa. The festival’s focus is on green living and learning. From classes on composting, connecting solar panels, rain water harvesting, generating cooking gas from waste food, converting waste oil into
detergent to starting your very own organic farm are just some of the many sensorial experiences that are on offer.
Day two at See Sharp festival commenced with a session on the challenges and opportunities one would come across while running a sustainable restaurant. During this session Gresham Fernandes emphasised on how one must support local producers and use local goods while cooking. Gresham Fernandes a Culinary Director at Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. runs over 45 restaurants in India. Gresham has been on a quest to make the Impresario restaurants more sustainable by looking into aspects such as seasonal procurement, waste management and the everyday issues related to running a restaurant. He has also mentioned how artisan skills such as making cheese or curing meat are dying out because of our modern eating habits.
Rico Zook during his session gave an introduction to permaculture and took the participants through how they can think in a regenerative system. Rico, a founding member of the ground-breaking firm Permaculture Design International (PDI) specializes in ecological design for farm, homestead, business, community, development and organization.
The festival venue is separated into four zones aptly names Air, Water, Fire and Earth after the elements of nature. Each of the zones host sessions and workshops related to the specific element.
At the Air Zone, Amanda Biccum conducted an interactive session on mindful eating and consciousness elixirs. Amanda, a mindfulness coach works closely with entrepreneurs to help them reconnect to their intuitive power through the mastery of nutrition, energy and overall body awareness. Her session focused on discovering the core concepts of mindful eating; a practice that can transform the way you view food.
At the Fire Zone, Rohan Mathew conducted a session on how to construct an earth bag structure in your backyard. Rohan is currently focussing his energies on merging the field of design, permaculture and sustainability in India. He undertakes projects all over India in building green sustainable homes and designing gardens and farms based on permaculture principles.
Gaurav Shorey, a young architect and project manager conducted an interesting session on how a dhoti can be tied in 100 ways which will take the viewers back to their cultural and local heritage. Gaurav Shorey says, “There is a philosophy in India where we believe that everything is perfect in itself, it doesn’t require change. And it is in our perception that we feel something is flawed. It in itself is not flawed. That philosophy is brought into art, into craft and the dhoti and saree is one such thing. It’s stitched in a single length where there is no cutting or wastage and it can be tied in so many different ways and styles. So the idea behind it is that we’ve got the sustainable cloth yet we choose to wear jeans.”
On day two at the Earth Zone, entrepreneur, organic farmer and Celebrity TV host Bharat Arora conducted a workshop on composting. Bharat imparted his knowledge on how one can start composting at home and while at the farm. The evening concluded with a dance performance by the Temple of Dance School founded by Lata Seth. Through this performance each dancer and accompaniment was seen paying a tribute to Mother Earth.
Day three, 26th February 2017 at See Sharp Fest will see sessions and workshops
on cooking according to the season, how to power your house or institute on solar energy, opportunities in permaculture, making a mini wind mill to name a few.
