From being a teacher at Fr Agnel Multipurpose School in Ambernath
where he taught guitar and singing, to being a travelling musician by night,
Cyril Fernandes from Pilerne found a way to bridge the gap between both careers
he had always chalked out for himself. Having given up teaching as a full time
profession in 2009, he focused more on writing music and singing songs that
struck a chord on a deep personal level. Recently, the former teacher decided
to return to the teaching arena with a new aim: that of giving back to the
sphere that matters much to him. Through his music and
new album, ‘Guru’, he pays tribute to the educational field and its dedicated
servants.
“I think that it is important that teachers receive, just as
they give. I don’t think that they get their due. So this album is a tribute to
teachers out there, which makes the title self-explanatory. However, I did
realise that just a regular guy singing songs to teachers about teachers wouldn’t
really do much in terms of sending out an impacting message, so I decided to
bring school children on board for this particular project.”
Having decided to do so, the logistics were the next step
that required to be overcome. With an aim to bring various children from a
series of schools together to pay tribute to their teachers, time was the one
resource that was not at Cyril’s disposal. He explains, “I had a sum total of
just two days to work with each school and I began to doubt whether it would be
enough, but somehow, it all came together in the end and that was more than I
could ask for.”
In the end, Cyril managed to round up students from over 16
schools, including the Sanjay Centre for children with special needs. “Some
schools that posed the biggest challenge in terms of incorporating the concepts
I wanted were the ones that yielded the best results. I think I can safely say
that the Sanjay Centre was one of those. They simply wowed me in the studio,”
says Cyril.
In keeping with his production, Cyril has also written a
song for this teachers’ day, titled, ‘Teacher you will never be forgotten’,
which aims at immortalising the work that teachers do. The entire project had
been so impacting on his life that Cyril, now done with the completion of his
project, aims to get back to his roots and teach in schools in Goa.
