A TRIBUTE TO TONY
THE PASSING OF AN ERA: A TRIBUTE TO TONY ROD
Joe Fernandes a friend of Tony’s for 60 years writes of his friend and uses the opportunity to take a nostalgic look at the values and the personalities that changed the life of the Goans in Delhi just after Independence.
I am on my way home by Metro after attending the memorial service for Tony. It is late. It is cold. The train is empty. It is X’mas but not the season to be jolly. My friends, like rice that we clean before cooking, are being plucked as chaff by Father Time. The others attended a memorial service for Tony. I was mourning the passing of an era. Tony was a product of the times- the fifties. They don’t make them like that any more. I said Tony Rod not Tony Rodrigues. In those days ‘Teatros’ used to be organized in Delhi. Actors from Goa played the main roles. The bit roles were acted by locals. The handbills for the Teatros -colourful bits of blue, pink, yellow and green were distributed after 9 o’clock mass at the Cathedral. At the bottom of the handbills, after due acknowledgement of the stars there would be the words ‘anni amcho’ Tony Rod. Ferns’ Pickles sounds so much better than Fernandes’ Pickles. Above the words there would be this passport photo of a young Tony looking up at you with his signature bow tie and smile. He got stuck with the name Tony Rod.
I came to Delhi in May 1951. We lived in Paharganj. In the summer evenings, my brothers and I would walk down to the New Delhi Railway Station, walk along the railway tracks till the Harding Bridge, then cross the road to the Press Ground which no longer exists. It was here or in the garden in front of Regal cinema that the Goans gathered to play football. And it was on the football ground that I first met Tony. Tony was a ‘back’! Tony was 20+. I was 10. Alongside him I can still picture Dennis and Anslem Gonsalves, F.X, Fanchu, my uncle Mathias Jacques, Joe Rodrigues of Central Court and some whose faces I can still recollect but whose names are now lost due to a failing memory.
My father, Cassiano was a sax player at Wengers. He was uneducated. When I say that Goans in those days were muzg, cuzner and botler, I do not mean to demean them. I believe in dignity of labour. But most Goans had no education for lack of opportunity. To think that they were therefore inferior is the Goan tragedy. They were doing what was necessary to keep body and soul together. Tony was a part of this earlier generation.
Tony neatly managed to sidestep this shortcoming. He was at home with those who were born in Chinchinim or New York, Saligao or London. He got us footballers introduced to baseball and the Americans at the Embassy, fitted us with kits and we were soon stealing bases at the American International School. Under his captaincy we were then introduced to the other foreigners Forsters, San Minguel, Heinekens and Johnny Walker!
And I, by design or chance had been chosen to be part of the watershed of the changes that were to take place in the life of Goans in Delhi. My father was ecstatic when India gained Independence.
“You don’t know,” he used to say, “ How demeaning it is to have to step outside the corridor in “Corner Place’ just because a Barrah Sahib is doing window shopping.” Goans found it difficult to say Connaught Place!
St. Columba’s and Jesus and Mary had opened their doors but Catholics were not joining. Most Goans thought that education was an unknown devil. They doubted whether kids in Goa who were saying ‘dis dat dese dose’ could adapt and walk shoulder to shoulder with the Barra Sahibs. My father with his extremist views mentioned above was bent on getting his children educated. So it was that Michael Albuquerque and I became the first Goans to step out of St Columba’s with a certificate. The impossible could be done. Goans took to St. Columba’s and Jesus and Mary like ducks to water.
We in Delhi do not realize the part played by Archbishop Joseph Fernandes, and that wonderful personality, Monsignor Burke in the upliftment of the Goans. The 9 o’clock mass on Sundays at the Cathedral was our watering hole. From places as far as Ashoka Hotel by foot and by cycle we would make it a point to attend Mass and then meet on the steps of the Cathedral.
In their sermons the Bishop and the Monsignor would entreat the congregation to take advantage of the schools. Monsignor Burke knew the financial difficulties faced by Goan families. He had given standing instructions that the altar servers be given a cup of tea, an egg and two slices of bread after mass. This was manna from heaven for us in those days.
To the above names I have to add that of Brother Crease, Principal of St. Columba’s. 1956 was the year of Elvis Pressley, of Bill Haley and the Comets and of Rock n Roll. Overnight musicians in Delhi were sacked. The guitar came into fashion. My father gave me the task of conveying the message that the school fees could not be paid. He was without a job. Bro. Crease was teaching the Senior Cambridge class when I knocked on the door, walked in and stammered:
“Daddy says he cannot pay the fees of Rs 10/-.” The whole class doubled with laughter. Bro. Crease put a hand around my shoulder and said: “ Tell your dad not to worry.” And there was Bro. Morrow, his grave face belying a kindly soul. He provided lunch to the catholic boys who were willing to take tuition after school.This was the other side of those same Barrah Sahibs!
It was at ‘Corner Place’ that most of the Hotels and Restaurants- Imperial and Palace Heights, Metro, Wenger’s and Volga were situated. The Goans were therefore living within striking distance of their place of work. Behind Scindia House were the Pachecos, known to one and all as every musician who came to Delhi stayed with them.
A few Goans lived in Old Delhi. This was because of the Maiden’s and Swiss Hotel now currently St. Xavier’s. My uncle Tony, a trumpeter and cousin Justo- both are no more- worked at the Maiden’s. Times were tough. On Tuesdays when they visited us they would bring over the ‘saved’ boiled eggs of the previous week that they had been served for breakfast. It is this ‘sharing and caring’ that was part and parcel of Tony Rod’s makeup and of the Goans in those days.
Then of course there was this unknown genius who had set up the 'coor' on Panchkuian Road where for a pittance one could get a place to rest the body while looking for a job and then recover the amount by drinking the unlimited XXX rum available during the celebration of St. Francis Xavier’s Feast on the night of 3rd December. Tony with his Havana was a regular!
Tony was one of the founder members of The Goan Sports Club. Always lending a helping hand on and off the field- long after he had ceased to be a member of the Executive Committee.
In 1966 I got married. Once again Tony volunteered to help out. He would ‘tend’ the bar. He would make the arrangements for rum. In those days all Goans were closely related to the Army, Air-force and the Navy if not their Canteens. Nowadays, there are 4 figures per head to be paid for weddings. In our days friends and relatives ‘volunteered’ to cook and serve. In my case FX and Illar were the other two. Musicians, who one knows today, are asking for 7000/- per head to play at weddings which get over by 10. In our days musicians played free for weddings that began at 9 and ended at 5 in the morning. It was courtesy for the host to insist they take the taxi fare!
I still have the wedding present given by Tony- a set of whiskey glasses where six measurements are ticked off on the side to rate your drinking capacity from the teetotaler to the drunk. Hic! A typical gesture from Tony.
I step out of the train and into a world without a Tony, a Monsignor Burke, a Bro. Morrow. It was the times. They don’t make them like that any more. But it is a world full of educated Goans.