The final Curtain - Basilio de Goa

The world is a colossal stage and life but the actor on it playing to the script of Fate from his debut in the mother's arms till the act of breathing the last, whereupon, falls the final curtain on the drama of life, and no hysterical encores of tears can yield a repeat performance.

Such a curtain has fallen on the life's drama of one who has witnessed umpteen times, the final curtain roled down on dramas of his own creation on the living theatrical stage, wherein, he has been the Writer, the Director, the Actor all in one.  He is no other than the idol of thousands of Konkani stage fans, the lamented Sr. Minguel Rod.

The script Fate wrote for his life seems to have tragically remained incomplete: for it is too early in the Act of his life, he was called to make the eternal exit, leaving unacted much that was anticipated of him.  For he was born a "Genius" to enrich the Konkani stage with the felicity of his super-imaginative pen, that produced some of the finest plays of our time.    

Cortalim - Salcette, where he was born and lived his childhood age, he had mainfested signs of "child prodigy" in the field of dramatic arts.  But, perhaps, because of his peasentry birth or because of lack of patronly dramatic enthusiast in that village he found himself nobody's protégé.

But like the steam of the boiling kettle, his talents did not wait for opportunity.  Young boy as he was in age, he found himself as the leader of other boys, writing, organizing, and acting small village concerts with benches for stage and bedsheets for curtains.   Petty, as they may have seemed, they were the starting point of the great things that followed.

Unfortunately, his popularity at teenage cost him his exile from his boloved motherland Goa, caused by the vicious social circle of the village 'Bhatcars'.  The succes of his one free concert at 13, for which
thousands thronged to see the boywriter, director and actor, sent pangs of jealousy to some of the empty-headed landlords there.

Failing to understand, how in such a poor family and home such a rich talent could have been born, they vent their tryanny on him by implicating him in mischievous activities and had vulnerable force on his trail.  To seek escape from their clutches, he emigrated to Bombay in 1936, poor and helpless!

It took him many hard knocks before he was admitted to Bombay's professional stage.  Fifteen years ago, jealouies among the theatrists and antipathy to new talents were at its peak.  Until the late Frank Aguiar, gave him a chance in 1941 to make his debut in one of his play directed by Anthony D'Sa.  No director believed that one so young was made of the professional-standard stuff.

Yet it was not until two years later, he got his first real break for which late Joao Agostinho Fernandes (dramatist) was instrumental. J.A. Fernandes who envisaged special interest in the lad, recommended him to Bombay Tiatrists who were at the height of their fame then, Ferrao offered him his first role in his play "Xethcamti'.

Success followed him with long strides than he could keep pace with.  But successes did not spoil him with inflation of pride and contentment.  He continued to live a simple unaffected life and worked harder spending nights in a dingy room by the smoky lights of a kerosene oil lamp, writing, composing or scheming directions that were always different!

There was much originality in his works both in the titles and themes, and the development of tragedy-plots with a salt of comedy was his speciality.  But he was the best specialist in composing the most apt songs with haunting melodies for the plays within the scenes itself.  The later is the unanimous verdict of all contemporary directors.

In composing songs his tasks was not merely inspirational as orthodox composers may be led to believe.  He composed the words and music simultaneously without putting the latter on paper. He did not know the rudiments of music and often he did not have handy paper and pencil to write down the lengthy verses.

Yet, the song was not lost.  The melody was committed to memory the first time it was conceived and to it were later composed the additional verses completing the theme of the songs.  All this, was recorded only in his memory.  And considering that this melodies were always complicated in rhythm and seldom catchy, his achievement must be contributed to the strange faculty he possessed which is solemnly called 'genius'.

He had been to no school, learned nothing from books or teachers except to write his native language Konkani.  Yet, he was master teacher of morals, and all his plays exposed social evils in the community and stressed on the uplift of the Goan masses by social service.  He was the bitterest critic of the orthodox society that isolated itself from the community in the grab of 'casteism' or 'classism'.  

But unlike many other tiatrists he never critised the weakness of the women folk of his community or of his professional rivals with songs called 'Zupatti'.  He always advocated against this mal-practice.  His songs were always with  either a salt of philosophy or a sugar of comedy, clean and morally healthy in presentation.

His histronic talents were versalite and knew no bounds for he could insulate the laugther in your heart and tear stream your eyes with his sad songs, mostly incorporated in the play itself  or, transport your sorrowing self in to the world of mirth with his comic songs and acting.

Though he brought happiness to thousands of Goans in India, Pakistan and Goa, his own domestic life has been often shadowed with unhappiness.  It is true that he earned in his profession more than any other tiatrist did and he claimed the highest number of plays written in the span of Konkani Dramatist's life, a tally of 28 plays in 10 years.  Yet he was often left broke.

The cause of his oft' repeated bankruptcy ws chiefly his habit of overspending on his friends, some of whom, taking unfair advantage of him influenced him to indulge in extra vagance and to part with sums of monies on pretext of loans which were seldom repaid. In such spoilt company he soon became addicted to liquor at quite a young age and squandered much of his earnings on it.

Among the many domestic virtues he cherished living a simple and humble life unaffected by fame and fortune, addiction to liquor is the only vice he carried with him till his last….. It was partly the cause from his last illness of tuberculosis.    His last drama has a prophetic title "Coddu Sounsar" (bitter world) for, his end too at the young age of 32 years was a bitter one.

What is the good of an actor without a stage?  A disabled playwright without an association to produce his plays and to reap for him the fruits of his talents?  It is the tragedy of our Konkani stage that playwright has to direct and also act his plays or his plays pile on the shelf unstaged.    His savings all spent on his illness, in the end this man who enrished the dramatic arts was left as poor as he had been when he had come to the Bombay city 18 years ago.  Only now he had his wife and five children to suffer the cruel blow of fate.

What plot the playwrite Fate chose for him!  It is as extra ordinary as the actor himself.  The dram of his life, we have witnesses, has been a novel experience that mostly a genius live, with identical virtues and even the vice of drunkeness.  It had been the part of the script Fate wrote for him to act and he could not have acted otherwise.

He came poor, stayed rich and returned poor to Goa, the homeland of his yearning, where Fate dropped the final curtain on the unfinished drama of his life on 4th October 1955 and no more the encore or the tear of his family, friends and stage-fans can force to life the Final Curtain.

{Courtesy:  SOTH ULOI Oct. 1955 - Special supplement on the death of Minguel Rod}.

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Special Thanks for the arrangements: Gaspar Almeida
with Fausto V. Da Costa. {Amchea kerit dhinvas Gaspar
Almeida ani Fausto V. Da Costa-k) - Goa-World Team
(Kuwait).