The silence of Goa’s Tiatro Academy till now 11th August 2013, Kuwait time 1.00 Noon, over the arrest of Tiatrist Francis de Tuem is very intriguing. Since Tuem belongs to the Tiatro and Tiatrists fraternity, Goa Tiatro Academy should have openly supported their arrested colleague by openly lodging a protest against the authority that arrested Tuem.
“My enemy is within me’, goes the saying and it looks Tuem’s enemy is within him only. “When I laugh the whole world laughs with me but when I cry I cry alone because at that time no friends and colleagues of mine come to clean my eyes fully wet with tears”.
Goa Tiatro Academy’s protest over Tuem’s arrest would surely be a booster towards fight for justice for Tuem. Goa Tiatro Academy is an authority and as such its action will carry weight. When one of our Tiatrist colleagues is facing injustice, we and other Tiatrists cannot sit in silence saying “MAKA KITEAK PODDLAM TEM?” Makaim poddonk na ani tukai poddonkna, tor konnank poddlam? Today it is for Tuem but tomorrow it can be for me or for any one of us and it may be in a different direction.
Mohammad Prophet when once asked “when there will be justice in this world”, He replied saying “When everyone of us would gather courage to fight against the injustice committed on to others as if that injustice has been committed on to us only”, then only there will be justice in this world.
Some prominent people in Tiiatro fraternity internally must have been happy to see what has been happened to Tuem because there are many in Tiatro fraternity who are very jealous of Tuem’s popularity in singing extra ordinary songs on politics, especially on Goan politics.
“One’s dirty Linen should not be washed publicly”, said one person to me today morning after reading in this forum my yesterday’s article on this subject. But first of all one should not dirty his Linen publicly thereby drawing public attention to react. The sins of public figures should be exposed publicly only so that others do not follow their bad examples. Mickey Pacheco is a public figure and as such he should be a role model for others by observing certain decorum in his discipline and morality. Some of his acts do not befit his official status. He lives the life of a rowdy for this reason he had to cool his dirty feet in the Prison Cell at Calangute. He gives bad example to others. Unfortunately, we have more rowdy public figures in Goa for this reason Goa is going to the dogs.
Tiatro came into existence to clean the society of its dirt from different segments of Goan society, namely Caste segment, Bhatkar-Mundkar segment, rich –poor segment and clergy segment as well. In these segments lot of ills going on and many or most of these ills were cleaned and eradicated by the Tiatro and Tiatriists. The legendary Minguel Rod played a major role in this cleaning in the second quarter of the last century.
Political cleaning from the Stage of the Goan politicos came into existence with the advent of the Bharati Raj in Goa where politics gone into the hands of “Rostad” politicians who without basic knowledge started to rule Goa starting from Dayananda Bandodkar. In this cleaning of Rostad politicians active role was played from the Stage by Kid Boxer, Conception-Nelson-Anthony, M. Dod de Verna, M. Boyer, William de Curtorim, Tomazinho Cardodoso, Felix de Divar and Francis de Tuem to name a few known figures.
In Goan community, there are two segments where there is too much of jealousy of each other and one another. One segment is of politicians and the other is Tiatrists fraternity. When Kid Boxer was arrested for the second time in Bombay because of his political song, very few Bombay based Tiatrists stood by him while others applauded his arrest silently from a distance saying “AMKAM KITEAK PODDLAM?”because they were jealous of Kid Boxer’s popularity.
When William de Curtorim was summoned to Mapusa Police Station for singing a political solo exposing misdeeds of Rane, overwhelming number of Goan Tiatrists internally showed their happiness saying “BORENCH ZALEM” because they were jealous of William’s popularity in Goa.
Again when William de Curtorim was assaulted at Saligao on the road by halting the Bus in which he was travelling along with his other colleagues, even his own colleagues remained dormant instead of providing helping hand to William at that critical time. William was coming home in a Micro Bus carrying all Tiatrist after finishing their Tiatro at Candolim where he rendered a solo against the misdeeds of a Candolim politician whose supporters did the assault on William.
When Francis de Tuem was arrested at the entrance of the Tiatro Hall, why not a single person from the hall packed audience intervened while the same audience applauds each and every sentence of Tuem’s songs? What prevented the other Tiatrists busy dressing behind the curtain from challenging the brute and undemocratic might of two policemen who arrested Francis de Tuem?
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait.