Swati Onkar plunged into deep depression when the building she resides in Jogeshwari, Mumbai, was sealed after three residents tested positive for Covid-19 with one, a senior citizen, succumbing.
The Margao-native, who had taken out her dusty Karaoke kit when the lockdown began and had been posting her videos on Facebook, went silent. Worried, neighbours and friends began hounding her through social media for one more song. A week into her quarantine nightmare the 44-year-old finally did; belting out ‘My heart is beating’ to her heart’s content.
“I felt alive again,” says the homemaker, for whom this 60-minute daily ritual is a “distraction from the pandemic anxiety”.
Music is medicine. “It can lift you up, change your mind, change your emotional state,” says bassist Collin D’Cruz, who spends 10-12 hours a day in his home studio at Sangolda working on recordings of artistes that he subsequently releases on his website and app, jazzgoa.com. On International Jazz Day last week he released his recording of over 20 musicians from across the world performing solos of a Thelonious Monk cover. While he misses live gigs, he keeps himself entertained by experimenting on the 12 bass instruments he has.
In Pilerne, Paul Fernandes, affectionately called Paulie, a musician and master of ceremonies, chose to stream on his FB page an hour-long live performance of his 60s, 70s and 80s repertoire on Easter Sunday. He’s done two more ‘shows’, with sons Shannon (in Muscat) and Keegan helping him “set things up”.
“I initially did not want to do this given that so many people in the world are dying and so many are sick with the virus. But people who know my work started asking me to post my videos. They insisted that the music was helping them come out of depression. That’s when I realised that both these realities—the suffering and the need to come out of it—are two sides of the same coin,” says Fernandes, who knows his audience is there only because of their feedback.
Feedback is what’s warming the heart of Omar de Loiola Pereira, a Benaulim-based musician, singer and choir director. Personally finding the present restrictions hard, “since I’m not a soloist and have always worked with people (ensembles)”, the posts on his YouTube channel of his choir Aradhon performing hymns, have been flooding the 44-year-old with messages of nostalgia and comfort.
“The most humbling message was from a lady whose mother was given just a few hours to live. As a way of comforting her, the lady started playing the videos of Aradhon. Though the mother could not see the videos, she could hear the hymns, and not only did she survive the night, she lived for a week more,” he recalls.
One of his musical partners, Selwyn Menezes, 51, is also finding it hard to make music, but is catching up with the online work of other musicians. He’s also learning how to post such videos from daughters Sharline, 21, a mass media student and Sheniah, 14, a Class X student, who themselves have contributed to online music posts by friends.
In Caranzalem, musician and music teacher, Paul Po, says he’s “connecting to his inner self”. The 38-year-old recently also connected his laptop to speakers and entertained his neighbourhood for an hour, followed by an acoustic version a few days later. Watching neighbours dance in their homes has convinced him he’s on the right track.
Back in Mumbai, Vasco-native Rashmi Gopali talks of how residents of the eight, 27-floor-each, towers where she resides in Thane, sing at 5pm every day. “There are three main coordinators who allot when who will sing. Since most don’t have a Karaoke system, they send their recording to the one who does and it’s played for the neighbourhood.” It’s helping neighbours bond, she adds.
Beverly Manjure, a French translator in Bengaluru, who in pre-lockdown days spent a week every month at her parents’ pad in Margao “singing with dad” and who recently had a video jam session with him, says, “In today’s world of uncertainty, music is reliable—as an energiser, a distraction, a spirit-lifter or a sleep inducer. It’s a detox for my soul.”
