Every generation finds new ways of telling the stories of a place. Through books, photographs, illustrations, films, recipes, archives, and everyday encounters, landscapes are recorded, interpreted, and passed on. Yet these stories are never fixed. They evolve with each retelling, carrying traces of memory, ecology, culture, and change. Double Take is Avid Learning's new series spotlighting creative partnerships across disciplines. Conceived as a presentation-led format, each episode invites speakers to explore a central theme through their individual lenses.
The second episode centres on Fish Curry and Rice: A Source Book on Goa, its Ecology and Lifestyle, a revamped, art-filled collector's edition of the beloved classic, returning twenty-five years after its last print. Bringing together perspectives from visual storytelling, cultural documentation, and public history, this conversation explores how Goa's many narratives are recorded and remembered. One speaker's work engages deeply with the ecology, culture, and communities of Goa through illustration, comics, photography, and animation, translating lived realities and environmental concerns into compelling visual narratives. The other brings years of engagement with Goa's literary, artistic, and social histories through writing, curation, and cultural discourse. Together, they will reflect on the making of the new edition of Fish Curry and Rice and the enduring relevance of its themes.
Join us as we celebrate Goa as a living archive of culture, memory, and imagination.
Vivek Menezes is a widely published writer and photographer, the co-founder and co-curator of the acclaimed Goa Arts + Literature Festival, founding editor of The Peacock daily newspaper at the International Film Festival of India, columnist for the 123-year-old O Heraldo newspaper, and a frequent contributor to other leading periodicals. He was born in Bombay, attended high school in New York, and holds degrees from Wesleyan University and the London School of Economics. As three-time curator at the Serendipity Arts Festival, he was responsible for the large-scale group exhibitions Konkani Surrealism (2017), Panjim 175 (2018) and Mundo Goa (2019). He lives in Panjim with his wife and three sons, very close to where the Mandovi river merges with the Arabian Sea at Miramar beach. Vivek is currently working on the definitive cultural history of Goa, represented by A Suitable Agency.
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Nishant Saldanha is an artist working across painting, drawing, photography, and writing. With a background in art and design from Central Saint Martins, London, and a degree in filmmaking and character animation from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), Los Angeles, his practice navigates multiple disciplines. His award-winning comic, Mr. Good Guy, takes an experimental approach to storytelling and was featured in The Best American Comics 2019 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). That same year, he was recognised as one of GQ’s Most Influential Young Indians. Saldanha’s contemporary art practice has been showcased at major art festivals, including the Serendipity Arts Festival and Goa Open Arts, and at galleries such as Sunaparanta and the Museum of Goa. His interest in archival work and museology has led to associations with the Museum of Christian Art, Old Goa, where he presented his sculptural installation Paper Chapel. The work also travelled to New Delhi, where it was exhibited at Pulp Society in 2025. His first large-scale oil painting, The Ghosts in the Archive (2024), is a painted personal history of his home state.
Read moreGoa has long been defined by the intersection of ecology, food, history and cultural exchange. Its identity can be understood through its landscapes, architecture, cuisine and everyday traditions—elements that continue to shape how the region is documented, represented and remembered today.
This relationship sits at the centre of the Fish Curry and Rice book Goa, Fish Curry and Rice: A Source Book on Goa, its Ecology and Lifestyle, a landmark publication that remains one of the most important references on Goa ecology and lifestyle. Long associated with Claude Alvares Fish Curry and Rice, the book offers a detailed exploration of Goa through food, biodiversity, architecture and local culture. More than a publication on regional life, it serves as a wide-ranging cultural document that connects environment, heritage and everyday experience.
What makes Fish Curry and Rice especially relevant today is its interdisciplinary approach. Rather than treating food, ecology or history as separate subjects, it brings them together to show how closely connected they are within Goan life. Cuisine reflects geography. Architecture responds to climate. Cultural traditions are shaped by landscape and community. This broader perspective continues to influence contemporary conversations around heritage and identity in Goa.
In the second episode of Double Take, Nishant Saldanha and Vivek Menezes come together for a wider conversation around Goan heritage documentation—how cultural knowledge is preserved, interpreted and shared through books, art, film and lived tradition.
These conversations are central to understanding modern Goan cultural identity. Goa continues to evolve socially, environmentally and culturally, and its identity reflects both continuity and change. Long-standing traditions remain visible in food, architecture, local crafts and community life, while new artistic and cultural practices continue to reinterpret what Goa means in the present.
This exchange of ideas also extends beyond Goa through platforms like the Avid Learning’s Double Take series, which brings together interdisciplinary voices across literature, art and culture. Such conversations open up new ways of engaging with regional histories and contemporary practices, allowing audiences to see Goa through multiple lenses—ecological, cultural, visual and archival.
Within Mumbai, these dialogues have found an important place in venues such as IFBE. For those exploring cultural events at IFBE Mumbai, Ballard Estate Mumbai events, or thoughtful Mumbai art and literature talks, these spaces continue to create opportunities for meaningful engagement with art, heritage and storytelling.
Books like Fish Curry and Rice remain significant because they continue to offer insight into Goa beyond familiar narratives. They document the connections between environment, community and cultural practice while creating space for newer interpretations through art, film and research.
Taken together, these perspectives present Goa not as a fixed idea, but as an evolving cultural landscape—one shaped by ecology, food, memory and creative practice. Through publications, visual storytelling and documentary work, Goa continues to be documented not only as a place, but as an ongoing conversation around identity, heritage and belonging.
