‘Even when silent, we converse’

At the Monte festival in old Goa, Marialena holds the earthen percussion instrument, the ghumot, on which Alexyz has painted her caricature. Pic/Tecla Fernandes; (right) At a college seminar, 1969

Marialena Fernandes, 75, concert pianist and music educator

Alexyz Fernandes, 80, cartoonist, writer and social commentator

Bombay-born, Vienna-based Dr Marialena Fernandes is universally feted for the virtuosity with which she performs at prestigious venues across the world. Winner of the All-India Beethoven Piano Competition, she was awarded a scholarship to the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she earned a Diploma in Piano and Chamber Music Performance. Subsequent honours later, she has served as the artistic director and international programme curator of crossover projects, fusing classical, jazz and global music intercultural exchanges between teachers, students and audiences. Years after her thesis, The Konkani Song: Roots-Development-Documentation, she continues inspiring local talent and recently received the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, the highest recognition of outstanding achievements of overseas Indians.

Marialena Fernandes on the piano accompanying Alexyz Fernandes singing at the inauguration of one of his Goa exhibitions. Pic/Marshal Fernandes; (right) Alexyz with his cartoon artwork. Pic/Tecla Fernandes

A political cartoonist of wit with sardonic views on current affairs, Alex - now Alexyz - Fernandes was a copywriter with MCM (Mass Communications & Marketing) agency. He then "said hello to the Grand Old Lady of Bori Bunder, knocking on Mario Miranda's cubicle door and walking into Khushwant Singh's den with a toons portfolio". With a prolific bank of more than 25,000 cartoons and caricatures, he has exhibited works at the House of Commons, England, and the Bradman Museum, Australia, and won a trophy for humour in Portugal. He lives in Goa.

From one Fernandes' soaring musical oeuvre to the other's satirical take on life, the conversation is powered by creative commitment.

• • •

Marialena Fernandes: Around 1968, when I moved from Sophia College to St Xavier's, I met Alex. He was one of those unassuming guys who moved around quite casually, as though he wasn't searching for anything or anyone. This impressed and drew my attention.

Alexyz Fernandes: I ventured into the magic of St Xavier's grey Gothic as an athlete, footballer and hockey player, having representing Dr Antonio Da Silva School in Dadar. Marialena and I interacted at Social Service League camps. No good at studies, I loved to sing, reworking my own version of numbers like "Come back to Sorrento". Though not in the college choir she conducted, I was very much a part of the Aquarius group of college pals who brought down her Byculla house with our voices.

MF: That home was full of music and laughter. My dad stood behind like a watch-dog, making sure nothing unconventional happened.

AF: Marialena was a child prodigy, like Mozart, with whom she shares a birthday. Her mother Hetty being a popular music teacher, the daughter probably imbibed the passion for music in the womb.

MF: College was centrally located. We often strolled around the area between lectures, watched movies at Metro and enjoyed yummy street food - chaat and frankies which were really "in" then. With that thrill of hanging around to see and be seen was animated dialogue and swapping of thought on socio-political matters.

AF: My cartooning wasn't just ha-ha-ha humour either. I couldn't make peace with the exaggeration of product advertising. Mario put me on to sports caricatures for mid-day and 1985 marked the start of my cartooning career. I contributed to Sportsweek, The Illustrated Weekly, Indian Express, Asian Age and O Heraldo, and wrote as well, in various genres including poetry, for these publications. Ten years after moving to Goa, I got involved with the volatile agitation for Konkani to be considered the state language and courted arrest for it.

MF: The intensity with which we've both worked individually - in different directions, yet with similar motivation and process - keeps us attracted to each other's projects. There is never a dearth of discussion. Even when silent, we converse, sensing in trust what the other is thinking. We burst out with our reflections at exactly the same moment, then go on endlessly.

AF: While most classmates migrated abroad for better opportunities, some were moved by another kind of idealism. Like our friends Claude and Norma Alvares, giving up the big city for somnolent Goa in the 1970s, accomplishing great things for the environment. My role as a community facilitator later found me organise the all-Goa Festival of Plants, the Sao Joao Boat Parade and the Ludwig van Beethoven concerts.

MF: An authentic guy, Alex is bursting with imagination. He gives me the feeling of complete comfort. Tranquillity, "susegad" in Goa, which by no means is lazy. His laughter is astounding. As I "live by my ear", nuances in those tones have me wondering. There is acceptance of our being what we are.

AF: Marialena is a music diva. Still, whenever she performs in Goa she meets several old friends and stays at our place. She loves my wife Tecla. Beethoven was the guy who brought us together again. In 2006, Marialena was invited at the Kala Academy, Panjim. I told her of the monumental statue of Beethoven in a garden in Gaunsavaddo in our lovely village of Siolim. She got truly excited. It was beyond her wildest dream to discover his statue on an imposing pedestal this side of Europe.

MF: The sight, one moonlit night, of the composer with the scroll in his hand vandalised, reduced me to tears. I promised to come here to perform.

AF: The following year she marched into Siolim with the Vienna University Ensemble, for the first of a few concerts.

MF: It has been over 50 years since leaving India but I've never felt I left. Childhood friendships with Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Parsis and every other community prove it is always the human behind the religion that matters.

AF: My 80th year opens many vistas. A book of song and verse will feature themes I care about, like the transformation of mud roads into construction messes. Realising there are more than four guys called Alex Fernandes in Siolim, I've added "yz" to my name.

MF: Magnet-like, I'm pulled back to Bombay annually. No city in the world comes close. Absolutely nothing can keep me away from the luxury of friendship, the nostalgia of memories, the laughter of the past.

Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes monthly on city friendships. You can reach her at meher.marfatia@mid-day.com/www.meher marfatia.com