While
most actors start off with theatre
before venturing into cinema, Ester Noronha starred in several Indian films before being drawn towards tiatr. Ester found her way back to her Konkani roots
by singing on the Konkani stage. A noted singer, dancer, performer and film
actress in Konkani, Hindi,
Marathi, Telugu, Tamil
and Kannada languages, Ester is currently working in several film projects.
However, she has also reserved
her dates for Mariano Fernandes’s tiatr, ‘Goem, Goenkar, Goenkarponn’ in which she is singing
three Konkani songs. Currently, wrapping up a shoot in Hyderabad, she is
waiting to come back to Goa for the next tiatr shows.
“I came down from Bahrain when I was a child and since then
I have been in India. I completed my Masters in Political Science in Mumbai and
I used to speak to my mother, Janet, in our mother tongue,Konkani, every day. As Mumbai receives students
from different parts of the country, many of my classmates didn’t even
understand what language I was speaking and that’s when I realised that we take
our language for granted or feel pressured to speak in other languages and
ignore our mother tongue. Once we are out of our home state, we will speak in
English or Hindi, while
people from other states are proud of their culture and openly speak in their
languages,” says Ester.
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Growing up in Mangalore, Ester was not new to the music
stage. As a teenager, she
would be present for major Konkani musical shows. However, what broke her heart
when she returned to Mangalore after a few years was the decline in musical shows as
youngsters had lost interest. “We
should not be ashamed of Konkani as it helps us establish our identity.
As bigger languages started coming into the state, the youngsters were lured to
watch films in Hindi or English in the cinemas instead of attending shows in
Konkani. I was constantly singing in Konkani on the stage and I loved live
performances. It would
be mostly people from my parents’
or grandparents’
generation who attended them. We had to do something to attract youngsters to
the language,” says Ester.
Her first brush with cinema was when she sang ‘Meu Amor’ in
the Konkani movie ‘Nachom-ia Kumpasar’. “I didn’t know that the film would be
such a big success. I was then
offered a role in the Manglorean Konkani film, ‘Nosibacho Khell’, directed by
Harry Fernandes. Since I had acted in different films in Mumbai and other parts of the
country, I had come across various actors, technicians, light men, choreographers, musicians who had
roots in Konkani and were working in these cinemas. It would be very
progressive if we could make them come back to Konkani and contribute even ten
per cent of what they are doing in their work, for Konkani. My mother
shared the same idea and we set up Janet Productions, which produced the film
‘Sophia’, where we used Goan and Manglorean Konkani in the script so that it was easily
identifiable by both the speakers,” explains Ester.
“I met Mariano Fernandes, who introduced me to tiatr and told me about the songs in his
tiatr, ‘Goem, Goenkar, Goenkarponn’. I didn’t get an opportunity to see other
tiatrs, but I have been told by many, that this tiatr is different. Hopefully,
I will move on to play a role very soon in some tiatrs,” says Ester about her
part in the world of tiatr.
Ester is also making her singing debut in Kannada for the
film ‘Atiratha’. She recently starred in
a Telugu film, ‘Jaya Janaki Nayaka’, and Kannada film ‘Nuggekayi’. “I would love to act in a Konkani
film in Goa and I am getting many scripts. However, I don’t want to act in
something created by amateurs.
It has to be a really good script with
great quality,” concludes Ester.
