My Name is Anthony Gonsalves

[Update: Anthony Gonsalves passed away in Goa on January 18, 2012, at the age of 84.]

In the 1977 film Amar Akbar Anthony, composer Pyarelal (of the iconic Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo) scored the music for the song My Name is Anthony Gonsalves, a number that went on to become a blockbuster hit in India. What is less known, however, is that the song’s opening line was Pyarelal’s homage to his mentor, the legendary Goan composer and musician, Anthony Gonsalves.

Before delving into the subject of this post, allow me to address a couple of personal niggles. First, I have never found Amitabh Bachchan’s antics in the film even remotely amusing. His brand of humour, oafish and exaggerated, epitomises the kind of slapstick that passes for comedy in India. Second, Kishore Kumar’s mangled pronunciation of “Gonsalves” continues to grate on Goan ears. For the record, the “Gon” is pronounced like “gone,” not “lone.”

Anthony Prabhu Gonsalves was born in 1927 in the picturesque coastal village of Majorda in South Goa. His father, Jose Antonio Gonsalves, served as choirmaster at Majorda’s Mãe de Deus church. A musical prodigy, young Anthony quickly imbibed his father’s teachings and, still in his early teens, set off for Bombay to join the vibrant circle of Goan musicians who dominated the city’s music scene.

At the time, Goan Catholic musicians, steeped in Western musical traditions, were indispensable to Hindi film composers, shaping the genre’s distinctive sound. These Goans were also instrumental in cultivating Bombay’s flourishing jazz culture. For a brief but illuminating account of these once-unsung and now largely forgotten trailblazers, see this.

Anthony Gonsalves stood apart from his peers. A highly cerebral musician, he was a man ahead of his time – and consequently, a man without a musical home. His passion for Indian Classical Music, coupled with his inventive mind, set him apart from other Goan musicians, yet his largely self-taught approach to the genre meant he lacked formal grounding and institutional support in that world. He straddled two disparate traditions, belonging fully to neither. In an era unprepared to embrace such a fusion, Anthony remained a misfit, his brilliance both his blessing and his burden.

The frustrations of navigating this uncharted territory left deep scars, but it was an incident in 1959 that delivered a near-fatal blow to his spirit. B.V. Keskar, then-Minister of Information and Broadcasting, refused to allow Anthony to compose the score for an animated film. Keskar, in an appalling display of bigotry, justified his decision with the claim that “Indian Christians should not even be provided with jobs.” This was the same individual whose philistine prejudices led to the banning of the harmonium on All India Radio, among other harebrained decrees. For Anthony, a man of extraordinary sensitivity, this act of discrimination struck at his very soul.

In 2008, during a conversation with me, Anthony recounted this painful episode, his face still etched with the anguish of a wound that had festered for nearly five decades. It was clear that the scars of that injustice had never fully healed. Here is an excerpt from that conversation –

[Update: See this for a background on Clair Weeks and his pioneering work in animation in India that Anthony refers to in the audio clip above.]

In 1965 Anthony left for Syracuse, New York, and joined the music department at the university. His son Kiran and daughter Laxmi were born there. In the early 1970s, he came back to India and retired to a quiet life in his ancestral village of Majorda. He never again worked in the music industry. All the symphonies and orchestral scores he wrote and conducted in his prime lie stashed away in an old rusty trunk. The musical works carry names like Symphony in Raga Multani and are a testament to his abiding love of Indian Classical Music. He still hopes that someday they will be revived and replayed.

I met Anthony-bab several times in 2008, and during one of our sessions recorded an extended conversation with him. He spoke about his experiences with the great music makers of yesteryear – Khemchand Prakash, Anil Biswas, Naushad, S.D. Burman, Salil Chaudhary, K.L. Saigal, Lata Mangeshkar, and many others. He cited some of the major scores he had written, such as for the movie JAAL (S.D. Burman), DO BIGHA ZAMEEN (Salil Chaudhary), and so on. An excerpt of that conversation is appended at the end of this post.

Last week I visited Anthony-bab and found that his health is in decline. In May of this year, he received an award from the Dadasaheb Phalke Foundation. Soon thereafter, a fall in his home left him confined to his bed. Other afflictions include a fading memory and impaired hearing. He is being looked after by his daughter Laxmi.

A documentary on the Anthony‘s life is slated for release in Panjim next week (Aug 5), and will be available on DVD. It has been produced by Shrikant Joshi, who made a similar documentary on composer Dattaram (Wadkar) some years ago.

Let us now turn to the photo essay. Following this series of images is an audio excerpt of my conversation with Anthony-bab.

More of my conversation with Anthony Gonsalves in May 2008 here –