A SATURDAY evening, it was Riza's day out. At the end of her single-digit years, she's still terribly patient with her father and enjoys the work-outings. Which could mean anything from running along picking up computer hard-disks to repairing spectacles, and a whole lot of other mundane tasks. All these appear interesting to her, as long as it's in Panjim, as long as she's bribed with an ice-cream thrown in, and preferably there's a visit to her favourite Cafe Tato too.
Just before the 8 pm deadline, when Panjim goes to sleep and tea-restaurants (like the otherwise-tolerant Cafe Prakash) close, I peeked into my engineer-musician friend Rui Lobo's office. It seemed open. A kid (more on him later) stood outside, on the ground floor door of the old colonial-time building at the corner near the municipal garden. Or what's left of it, in its poorly maintained state, and no friendly musical evenings. Rui wasn't in. But Roque was. Roque Lazarus [EMAIL PROTECTED] is a musician who's cybersavvy. Hence he was quick to take up my offer for a brief video interview. First, he played something in Konkani for me [1]. View the resultant videos below. Then, we spoke about his views on music, how musicians are doing in current day Goa, and how things are evolving here [2]. We even managed to squeeze in an interview with his student, a schoolboy by the name of Anthony Lopez, from the nearby village of Taleigao, who sang a soulful love-song called 'Sokalim' (By Morning) composed by his teacher [3]. The same young lad who was waiting outside. Roque has been in e-touch with me for some time now. He's one of the musicians here who's into the Net, perhaps because his age of 32 allows him to be one of those who grew up with these technologies. See the YouTube page of this former Don Bosco student [4]. For that matter, he's even linked up with MP3.com [5]. His music brought a smile to me, and its quaint quality (taking Goan traditions into the cyber age) pushed me into listening to it many times over. Check it out... [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8AppHIxsnY [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=votdSF8L-2k [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmhFMZrWTGA [4] http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=roquelazarus [5] http://www.mp3.com/artist/roque-lazarus/summary/ -- FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org Software for Kids Blog: http://softwareforkids.wordpress.com