Por Amor à Índia

João Feyo Folque nasceu em Lisboa em 1960. É autor de FOLQUE, Breve Ensaio Genealógico, edição do Instituto Dom João VI, 2007.
Começou a viajar pela Índia no início de 2012 e desde essa altura tem passado grande parte do tempo aprofundando os seus conhecimentos sobre a Índia e o seu Povo, percorrendo para isso o País durante longos meses todos os anos. É, porém, nas antigas Praças do Norte do antigo Estado Português da Índia, Damão e Diu, que o autor termina sempre as suas estadias anuais.
Sobre o autor, o jornalista Naresh Fernandes escreveu em Colonial Cousins, publicado em Julho de 2012 no National Geographic Traveller Índia: «Few people know that better than Joao Folque, whom I ran into at breakfast in the cosy guest house in which we were both staying. Even though he’d never visited the country before, Folque had lived all his 52 years with Índia all around him. The homes he’d grown up in had been decorated with indian objects d’art. Christmas Day at the Folque family seat, outside Lisbon, is marked by a hearty meal of lobster curry. These are the mementoes of the 46 years his grandfather spent in Índia – 20 of them as Diu’s governor. After dreaming of the subcontinent for so long, Joao Folque – who had been named after his grandfather – had finally taken the plunge. He was puttering through the lanes of Diu on a scooter, using his grandfather’s diaries and photograph albums as his guide. He was chatting with students in the Gujarati schools Folque Sr had established, tracking down marble plaques that bore the old man’s name and marvelling at how so many of the streetscapes seemed almost unchanged. “When I came here, it was like coming home,” Joao Folque Jr said “I was filled with emotion. I can see so much that’s Portuguese here – the balconies and Windows of the houses, the way the streets are laid out.”»
E no livro Travels through Gujarat, Daman, and Diu, de 2018, Adam Yamey dedica-lhe um sub-capitulo The Governor´s Grandson onde a certa altura escreve: «João, who visits Diu regulary for prolonged days, is a mine of information about the island and its history.»
A nível pessoal, tem divulgado a Índia na generalidade e, mais em particular, Damão e Diu, onde tem ajudado em causas como a preservação e a divulgação do património cultural da época portuguesa, fortalecendo assim os laços de amizade destes territórios com Portugal, também com o intuito da valorização desse mesmo património na perspectiva do turismo, seja nacional ou internacional.