Avid Learning, a longtime supporter of the Serendipity Arts Festival since 2017, proudly partnered with SAF 2025 as the festival returned to Panjim, Goa, for its landmark 10th edition. South Asia’s largest multidisciplinary arts festival, Serendipity transforms the city into a vibrant celebration of culture, creativity, and public engagement. Spanning music, dance, theatre, visual arts, crafts, culinary arts, literature, and more, the festival is committed to accessibility and inclusivity, bringing diverse artistic expressions to audiences through immersive experiences, workshops, performances, and conversations.
In celebration of a decade of artistic innovation, cultural dialogue, and creative exploration across South Asia, Avid Learning curated two thought-provoking panel discussions that reflected its ongoing commitment to interdisciplinary exchange, heritage-led inquiry, and contemporary cultural discourse.
The first session, Visual Storytelling in Goa | In the Footsteps of Mario de Miranda, paid tribute to one of India’s most iconic illustrators. Using Mario de Miranda’s vivacious and observant body of work as a starting point, the panel explored the evolving language of visual storytelling across generations of cartoonists, graphic novelists, and illustrators. The discussion examined shifts in form, narrative style, and content, while reflecting on how humour, place, and social observation continue to shape visual culture in Goa and beyond. The session featured Architect Gerard Da Cunha, Caricaturist Sanket Lawande, Comic Artist, Illustrator, and Animat Deepti Megh, Co-founder and Co-curator, Goa Arts Festival Vivek Menezes and was moderated byGraphic Novelist and Writer Amruta Patil
L-R: Amruta Patil, Gerard Da Cunha, Sanket Lawande, Deepti Megh, Vivek Menezes
The second session, Taste Migrations: Coastal Culinary Dialogues, traced the layered culinary histories of India’s western coastline, from the Konkan to the Malabar. Bringing together chefs, food historians, and cultural voices, the conversation explored how centuries of trade, travel, and migration shaped coastal cuisines through Saraswat, Portuguese, Moplah, and Konkan traditions, enriched by African, Middle Eastern, and global influences. The panel reflected on culinary memory and storytelling across oral traditions, cookbooks, television, and contemporary pop-ups, while engaging with questions of revival, reinvention, and the future of coastal cuisines on the global culinary map. The session featured Food Historian, Author, and Television Host Odette Mascarenhas and Chef & Founder, The Locavore Thomas Zacharias and was moderated by SVP, Essar Group, CEO, Avid Learning, and Curator, Royal Opera House Asad Lalljee
Standing (L-R): Odette Mascarenhas, Thomas Zacharias, Asad Lalljee
Together, the two conversations underscored Avid Learning’s curatorial ethos—creating accessible public platforms that place art, food, heritage, and contemporary practice in dialogue, while fostering deeper cultural understanding through storytelling and shared histories.
L-R: Asad Lalljee, Amruta Patil, Gerard Da Cunha, Sanket Lawande, Deepti Megh, Vivek Menezes
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