Sancoale-based Braz Livramento D’Mello, popularly known as Braz D’Mello on the tiatr stage, was born on October 9, 1943 and carried out his primary studies in Portuguese and completed his ‘segundo gravo’ successfully. Simultaneously, he also studied music at the parochial school under the guidance of mestri Lorosin Fernandes. Braz feels fortunate to have learnt the rudiments of violin during his childhood as it helped him later in the composition of countless songs, while setting them to new tunes. He did not have the opportunity to progress with further studies in violin, but the basics were enough to move forward with his talent of composing and singing songs.
Braz scripted his first tiatr, ‘Keimbo’, at the tender age of 12. He says that earlier, when he was living in Cortalim, there would be a lot of banana plantations in the vicinity and he was inspired to script his tiatr based on them.
With regard to his first tiatr, Braz explains, “The banana tree (keimbo) was picturised as the father, with the ‘bond’ as the mother and its fruit as the children. “The lads of my ward were involved in the play,” he adds, “and the entire banana tree was brought on the stage for presentation.”
“Bits of paper were given out as tickets for the show,” Braz reveals, “and instead of money, seashells were collected in exchange of tickets. If the same seashells were sold to a baker, then perhaps I would have earned ‘pan duddu’ or ‘ordho poiso’ as per the quantity of seashells,” he says.
Somewhere around 1967-68, Braz penned his tiatr, ‘Alaxiro’, and roped in artistes Milagrin, Ana Maria (sister of Jr Rod), Rosy and others. The tiatr was staged for the feast of the Holy Cross at Arvadem ward in Cortalim. Thereafter, annually, at least 7-8 tiatrs scripted by Braz were staged on the same feast day.
After he moved residence to Sancoale, he scripted and staged two tiatrs, ‘Moises’ and ‘Sot Bhavartachem’. In 1986, he flew to Kuwait for better prospects and served there as marine mechanic (diesel/petrol) for almost 12 years.
On his return home, Braz continued with his services by taking barges on contract from Cabral and engaging himself with repairs and fitting of engines. During this tenure at home, he penned and staged tiatr ‘Terrorist’, which had all songs composed by him. He also penned a non-stop drama, ‘Rag’, wherein he introduced fellow-villager Sonali Naik as a teen.
Besides scripting and staging tiatrs, Braz has also been involved in training Sancoale boys for one-act plays staged especially during the Christmas season, besides working on Zagor ‘Xen’, which comprised special songs provided to certain communities for rendition on festive occasions.
When Mumbai tiatrists would come down to Goa in order to stage their tiatrs, Braz would make it a point to go and watch them. But he would also carry a song or two with him with the hope of rendering them during the performance.
When Mumbai tiatrs were staged at ‘Gadian’ in Cortalim, Braz informs, “A request would be made to include my song in the tiatr and Alfred Rose always encouraged me.”
In 1975,Braz stopped staging his own productions, but continued penning tiatr scripts and composing songs and provided them to the youth from his village. He has over 100 songs in the form of solos, duets, duos, trios and quartets, to his credit. He has also rendered duets, mostly with Josephine, Milagrin and Rosy.
Except politics, Braz has composed songs based on family and social issues. During Sunday service or novenas in the church, he has always drawn inspiration from sermons preached by the priests and it has helped him to work on new compositions.
“A little knowledge of solfagio, besides playing the violin, has helped me to pen down notes and work on new compositions,” reveals Braz, who has 10 tiatrs to his credit and one VCD, ‘Padrilo Sermao’, released in 2008.
During the tenure of late Allan Costa, Braz’s countless songs have featured on All India Radio (AIR).
For his contribution towards art and culture, he was presented with the state’s Kala Gaurav Award in 2012-13, besides being feted by the 125thtiatr celebrations committee in 2017 at Vasco.
After a gap of 40 years, Braz has made a comeback on stage in Sharon Mazarello’stiatr ‘Tukai Tench Assa’. When asked about his return to stage, “As the tiatr has all senior tiatrists, I was inspired to join the vintage. I will never make a comeback with the present genre of tiatrists,” he replied with a smile on his face.
