At the end of those ninety minutes, last Saturday at the Kala Academy, there was laughter, tears of joy and overriding all this, a deep sense of Déjà vu. Fiddler on the Roof, a delightful movie and musical, set in the Pales of Imperial Russia at the turn of the nineteenth century has nestled in the hall of fame of iconic literature for fifty years (the musical was staged in 1964). But it finally came to Goa and at the end of it, we all asked, couldn’t it just have been called “A life in a Goan village”
As we hummed ‘If I were a rich man”, and gingerly held the hand of the loved one as Perchik, and his beloved Hodel sang ‘Now I have everything”, and cried when Tevye and Golde sang “Do you love me”, the songs of this all time great musical became songs of a Goan village. Fiddler on the Roof brought by the revivalist of English theatre in this part of India Leila Alvares’, is now officially, after fifty years, an adaption of “Life in a Goan village”. Because we say so. And to know why, here is the story for those uninitiated with the classic. Hodel mentioned above is one of the five daughters of Tevye the dairyman, and his quaint and endearing attempts to maintain family and Jewish traditions, coping desperately with his strong willed daughters, each of whom find matches without the help of the one ordained for such important matters, the village matchmaker, the bent old lady Yente. Sounds familiar. It did to me, as I struggled to look at a dear mother figure from Loutolim, who was with us for the play but seated in the VIP section, further away. As Yente walked in (played by the irrepressible Darius Taraporvala my former colleague at NDTV and a man), it could well have been my Loutolim mother figure who has taken upon herself that no man of many age should remain unmatched, which obviously means that no woman of any age should be unmatched.
This is a perfect time to pay tribute to her, as has been done before, because she has done better than Yente, well almost. While Yente failed to match any of Tevye’s daughters, or at least the ones who were not near infants (she tried to pack them off too with young lads in short pants), our beloved Yente of Loutolim, has had many more successes of matchmaking, except perhaps with the ones closer home. She is a star.
As the play went on, every scene was plucked out of a Goan village. The fiddler is the local strummer of instruments in every Goan village, and once upon a time in every home. Mordcha’s inn, where Tevye meets a fellow called Lazar thinking the latter wanted to buy his cow only to learn that he actually wanted the hand of his daughter, could well be the Marlett bar in Loutolim or my favorite Lenny’s at Curtorim. The merry drunken dance of Tevye, Lazar and the Tsar’s soldiers, each showing off their dancing skills was a lift from a grand old Goan party of feasting and dancing.
And then comes the poignantly moving scene and song where Tevye asks Golde, that despite their own arranged marriage, and contrary to the “love” their daughters were finding pre marriage, “Do You Love Me?” After ( a slightly blushing I thought), Golde waves off the question as “foolish” she “supposes” that after twenty five years of living, trying to find ends meet and raising five daughters, she loves him. Many women and men too, had moist eyes as Tevye and Golde held each other and sang “Do you love me”. Mushy? No, just very real.
But the piece de resistance, was in the finest traditions of Goa. While Goa has perfected this tradition into a fine art, the Russians did come close, with the rendition of “The rumour I just heard”. Anatevka, the village where this is set, is buzzing with the rumour that Perchnik the student revolutionary and Hodel’s beloved has been arrested and exiled to Siberia and Hodel is set to join him. But Yente the match maker starts one of the many versions of the story and then adds more as the village square is consumed with differing versions, each further from the truth. Well, that’s hardly surprising to the copyright holders of such a tradition, all among the lovely audience watching Fiddler on the Roof at Kala Academy last Saturday. Fiddler on the Roof may well have had another lovely name “Fedrick at the Tinto”
