The greatest characters in this world are
known by the company they keep. Sherlock Holmes had his briar pipe, Fidel
Castro had his cigars and Shakespeare had his trademark moustache. And then we
had the greats of music. Chubby Checker who taught us to twist again, wore a
chequered coat or a jean jacket every time he sang and Miles Davis or BB King
didn’t get off bed without their trumpets and guitars.
When the reality of Emiliano Da Cruz’s
passing away finally sinks in, there will be two images battling for centre
piece attention, much like two instruments jostling for space in a musical
composition. And they are not the violin and the mandolin; his constant visible
companions. The images which will outlive Emiliano are his hat, now in the
corner of his small corner room where he slept in the last days of his life, a
room overlooking the garden at the back which ran all the way to the rear of
his Loutolim home, resting uneasy for they belonged to his bald pate and to him
alone. And his smile. For those who saw a lot of him in the past year when, we
all knew that while his music was eternal, his life had almost run its course.
But there was that smile that defied and taunted death. That smile made the
doctors question their prognosis and us who were dabbling with despair to hope
again. Our Emiliano smiled through everything. Through the pain of dialysis three days a week, the trauma of his
inability to lift his violin and serenade at will and the pain of doubt that he
wouldn’t be able to dance with his daughter Tabitha at her wedding or walk her
down the aisle. He smiled through them all. But he did always keep some petrol
in the tank for his children. He did dress up and look very dapper as the
bride’s father at his daughter’s wedding and turned up for one of son Zubin’s
concerts at Navelim, lamenting quietly to yours truly sitting next to him that
he wished he sang more of the classical stuff. But all with a twinkle in his
eye and the ever radiant smile that radiated the world with so much sunshine
that the solitary spots of sadness had no chance to be visible.
As his health deteriorated, he saw in this
process, a parallel with Goa’s deterioration, with each organ, body part and limb
getting eroded, with the stress of forcing Goa into the 21st century. Emiliano
could turn to no one as his beloved land became more and more alien, like an
image fading more and more to a point when it was a distant outline. The Goa he
knew, loved, cared and came back to from Bombay in the early eighties was such
a distant outline that the only way he could get it back was through his
imagination. And for Emiliano, his imagination ran through his music, his eyes
tightly shut, and his wrinkles taut as each note reached a crescendo and
trickles of sweat formed on his brow. Music was his only solace, an abode he
ran to all the time because he couldn’t bear to see this Goa. But he smiled
through it all, often chuckling to stress a point rather than crying. His smile
did both, lift up his spirits and ease his heavy heart through his own sense of
outpouring.
And yet he always used his mandolin and
violin to delight, to offer, to entertain and to serenade. His music was never
a weapon of anger but a balm to take him away from a Goa he knew less and less
and into a world he would never ever know less – his world of music and
composition.
Towards the end he reached out a lot to the
very young and the young with faith hope that the Goan sons, daughters and
their children, would keep musical traditions alive, his simple mind finding
sanity only in music. His troubled heart, on the other hand clutched at straws,
looking for someone or something that would take the fight back to the enemies
of Goa – corrupt politicians, land sharks, the changing face of Goan homes and
villages. He read voraciously, especially some newspapers, he loved the one you
are reading now and he loved it for years and sent long passionate messages
when strong issues we raised struck a chord.
To all readers of Herald, it’s a tribute
that he adored your newspaper, hoping that one day our work would bring about a
Goa, he would not have to run from but run to. He would still have his music
but that would be an outpouring of a lighter heart, in a Goa that was like the
one of yore. His blessings and his little gifts – text messages of generous
praise, far in excess of what was deserved, him sending someone down with his
latest CD and his promise to serenade for 45 minutes, “as soon I’m a bit
better”, are priceless treasures.
Today, he is a lot better, a lot lot
better, but he is serenading in the heavens, away from the Goa he couldn’t bear
to see, leaving behind two images etched in Goa’s countryside and in our hearts
– his hat and his smile.
And if he had to write his own epitaph on
his tombstone, he would quite agree to this one about his bounty – his music,
and his love – of and for Goa which he shared with all of us:
My
bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My
love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The
more I have, for both are infinite
– William Shakespeare
