GOAN MUSIC-2 By Valmiki Faleiro ‘Dipti vonti, Sulo kinni.’ What on earth is this, you may wonder. If you read me last week, you’d know it’s the title of an 18th century Konknni hymn. Which brings me to what “Goan Music” means to me. Simply put, Konknni music – in its entire ‘gamut.’ From ancient folk songs, to post-1510 hymns and mandos, to modern songs (tiatr, cinema, ‘cantaram’), whether sung by Alfred Rose or Ulhas Buyao, Lorna Cordeiro or Varsha Usgaonkar, or those lovely folks from Mangalore. The first category (ancient) is now, alas, practically dead in Goa. Random strains may be heard among Goans settled in South Canara from the mid-16th century. Even 17th to 19th century songs, mostly hymns, reside in archived score sheets – unless resuscitated, as “Dipti vonti...” recently was at the Holy Spirit church concert. Some old mandos survive, as does the unique 19th century hymn, “San Franciscu Xavier-a, tuji kudd-i Goeam xara,” a rendition almost in the mando meter. “San Franciscu Xavier-a…” is Goa’s most popular hymnal tribute to the ‘Goencho Saib’ ever. By that hymn hangs a queer story. Let’s look at it today. Respected friend and Church historian, Fr. Nascimento Mascarenhas, wrote about it in Bonaventure D’ Pietro’s ‘Arso’ (Vol 1, Feb-1995.) Dr. Jose Pereira, US-based/Curtorcar academician-chronicler, I’m told, also wrote about it. Over to the story. Mestre Raimundo Floriano Feleciano Barreto (Feb 16, 1837 to July 23, 1906) scripted, set to music, and conducted the first public rendition of “S. Franciscu Xavier-a.” He was a ‘gaunkar’ of Loutulim, a village that produced a bumper crop of gifted maestros and a large chunk of our mandos. Raimundo was the ‘Mestre da Capela’ of the Se Cathedral. He lived in St. Matias, Divar, and, in the 1850s, married a girl from there, Maria Adelaide (Adelina) Guilhermina Cecilia da Silveira. Besides conducting Goa’s largest choir at the Sé Cathedral, Mestre Raimundo, as “Economo,” recovered land rents due to the Cathedral from the villages of Piedade, Vanxim, etc. of Divar. He maintained accounts. He also collected monthly grants to the Canons of the Cathedral from the Treasury in Panjim and disbursed their salaries. Travel from Divar/Old Goa to Panjim, those days, was by rowboat. (The steam engine was yet to be invented.) Mestre Raimundo was returning from Panjim one evening, money of the Canons’ salary drawn from the Treasury in the bag he tightly clutched. With reason: river waters were choppy and the boat tossed more than usual. Passengers were apprehensive. The boat had reached the Ribandar area, when it suddenly rolled, jettisoning everyone into the waters. A lady who saw that happen raised an alarm, and villagers rushed to join the boatman in rescuing the drowning passengers. As Raimundo sunk to the riverbed, sure end within sight, he prayed to ‘Goencho Saib,’ vowing that if saved, he’d pay with his best talents a tribute in the Saint’s honour. Saved, he was. But not the bag with money for the Canons of the Cathedral. The cruel Canons of the Sé would have none of his story. They demanded Raimundo make good the loss, by recovering the moneybag from the riverbed or from his assets. Mestre Raimundo sold his ground-plus-one storeyed mansion at St. Matias, to a Silveira of the same locality, and paid the dues to the Canons. Yet, he owed another debt, that of redeeming the vow made to ‘Goencho Saib’ as he drowned in the mucky riverbed of the Mandovi that day. He worked on this, silently. The result was kept a closely guarded secret by the composer-conductor and his choir, until the next Dec 3, at the feast Mass of the saint at the Basilica, where it was unveiled. Yes, it was “San Franciscu Xavier-a, tuji kudd-i Goeam xara.” The entire congregation, led by the Archbishop-Patriarch and clergy, was awestruck. Never had such a hymn – so Goan, so magical – been heard before. The Canons of the Cathedral, to be sure, were all there. They were dumbstruck. Perhaps remorseful. That hymn reverberates every Dec 3, to this day. Mestre Raimundo had five children: Eugenio rose to be Postmaster General in Zanzibar, remained a bachelor and helped build a new family mansion at Goltim-Divar. Two others (Alberto Santana Caetano and Faustino Eugenio Maria) became priests. Ana Paula remained a spinster. Caetano Francisco Celestino married Aduzinda Maria Morina Julia Pinto. I know. Because a branch of Mestre Raimundo’s great-grandchildren are my maternal first cousins. The eldest of them, Luis Alberto, married Ivette Silveira – born to the self same mansion that Mestre Raimundo sold to pay off the salaries of the Canons of the Cathedral. Coincidence? (To conclude) (Ends.) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the August 17, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
