Fado: Soul of Portugal
- 2 years ago
Fado, they say, is the soul of Portugal in a song. The sailors sang these songs of yearning and of tragic loss. Fado means fate but then you can’t ever fully translate.
Sonia Shirsat’s voice can make paper planes fly across oceans or make boats leap out of the sea. It is that kind of a voice.
At her house, she showed me her grandmother’s diary where she would note down lyrics after listening to them on radio. If she missed a sentence or a word, she would wait for the song to play again on the radio so she could fill in the gaps. Back then, Fado was sung by women in Goa and the diary is a testimony to that. There were these appliqué things she did in the diary. It is a keepsake and a holder of songs of longing.
That evening, Sonia sang for us. She and Carlos in an old house in Fontainhas in Panjim.
She has been at the forefront of Fado revival in Goa.
“Fiz do destino dum fado, O fado do meu destino’
- I made the fate of a fado, the fate of my destiny.”
- she writes in Outlookindia’s edition on Goa in our Substrata section
Sonia Shirsat’s voice can make paper planes fly across oceans or make boats leap out of the sea. It is that kind of a voice.
At her house, she showed me her grandmother’s diary where she would note down lyrics after listening to them on radio. If she missed a sentence or a word, she would wait for the song to play again on the radio so she could fill in the gaps. Back then, Fado was sung by women in Goa and the diary is a testimony to that. There were these appliqué things she did in the diary. It is a keepsake and a holder of songs of longing.
That evening, Sonia sang for us. She and Carlos in an old house in Fontainhas in Panjim.
She has been at the forefront of Fado revival in Goa.
“Fiz do destino dum fado, O fado do meu destino’
- I made the fate of a fado, the fate of my destiny.”
- she writes in Outlookindia’s edition on Goa in our Substrata section