At home in Mumbai, almost every single halcyon Sunday of my childhood was spent paying obeisance to a triumvirate of deities whose ethereal voices filtered in from the vinyl records we played on the only working-condition Jensen 3-speed stereo turntable in the neighbourhood that had magically survived the onslaught of the CD player. While Ella Fitzgerald urged us to ‘Dream a Little Dream’ of her, Egyptian songstress Umm Kulthum sang to us about her absentee lover with her 1965 ballad ‘Baeed Anak’. But it was always the third diva who struck a home run straight into my music-and-nostalgia-obsessed father’s heart.
Amália Rodrigues, the legendary Portuguese fadista (female fado performer), always achieved the impossible by bringing a tear or two to the eyes of the otherwise stoic man, as he listened to the velvety timbre hit of those impossibly high notes only she could scale. As the undisputed high priestess of the Portuguese style of singing called fado — characterised by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea and lost love, she managed to distil into song dad’s favourite Portuguese word, saudade or longing, a feeling of loss. A loss of cultural identity that he experienced intensely, having been born in pre-1961 Portuguese Goa and having lived in Mumbai since. A loss he felt with Rodrigues’s passing in 1999. He had always wanted to see her perform live in Lisbon, but never got the opportunity.
Almost exactly six months to the day of dad’s own passing late last year, I boarded a flight from Zurich to Lisbon with the mission of partaking in all things fado in a short, one-day tributary trip that was beginning to get tinged with a certain shade of melancholia, thanks to the many reminders of dad’s favourite things — from the old Portuguese architectural styles to the deep-fried cod fish cakes called pastéis de bacalhau . And there I was, one sunny afternoon, under the triumphal marble Rua Augusta Arch on the Praça do Comércio, waiting for my Fado Walking Tour to commence.
Having pre-booked a spot on the three-hour walk online, I clutched my 30 euro receipt and thrust it at the guide as he ticked my name off his list. Accompanying our motley group of 10 tourists, besides the guide who called himself Pedro, was a fadista named Maria de Barboza who we were told would give impromptu fado performances as the tour progressed along Lisbon’s famed alleys and public squares.
City Center
Recently elected as a Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, fado and its history continue to be an important part of everyday life in Portugal. As we took in the splendour of the Praça do Rossio Square, we learnt that it was from here that central Lisbon was rebuilt and laid out in a grid-like pattern after the 1755 earthquake destroyed a part of the city. Today, the Square — once the setting of popular revolts and celebrations, bullfights and executions — sees both organised fado performances in summer and impromptu ones like the one Maria put on for us as she belted out Rodrigues’s 1951 single ‘Ai Mouraria’, a lilting ballad I was all too familiar with.
A little further, the hip and trendy Chiado area is generally the best place for shopping and people-watching, near the statue of the 16th century epic poet Luis de Camões, at Camões Square. But that day, it was the spot where Pedro chose to give us a lesson in the basics of fado. The word has its underpinnings in the Latin word fatum , from which the English word ‘fate’ also stems. There are two types of fado, one found in Lisbon, one in Coimbra. The style heard in Lisbon is the most popular, while in Coimbra has a more classical style. To illustrate this point, Maria demonstrated the difference and it became apparent even to a tone-deaf person.
Our next stop was at the Museu do Fado or Fado Museum in the neighbourhood of Largo do Chafariz de Dentro. Set up in 1998, it is a fascinating place to get a hands-on insight into the world of fado, with its well-maintained permanent exhibits and collections of musical instruments like the tear drop-shaped Portuguese guitarra (guitar), the four-string Portuguese version of the acoustic bass guitar developed in the 1960s called viola baixo, and the ornate costumes worn by fadistas for performances.
Fado singer
It was here that I learnt more about Sonia Shirsat, a Goan fadista who is currently considered one of the top performers in the world of fado and regarded ‘the ambassador of Goan music to the world’. Shirsat has managed to kick open the door to the rather insular Portuguese fado world with her sheer, transcendent talent and fantastic voice. She gave her first-ever solo concert in Portugal in 2008 and has not looked back since.
Our final pitstop of the evening was at the famed Clube do Fado in the historic Alfama area which offers, my Portuguese friends said, the best live performances of fado in Lisbon, maybe even Portugal. The club, located a short distance away from the Sé de Lisboa (Lisbon Cathedral), has solid stone walls, columns, arches and a huge ogival ceiling. And it was here, over a couple of glasses of ruby-red port wine, unending bowls of caldo verde soup, and a platter of spicy, barbecued chouriço sausage, that we took in the spellbinding performances of the club’s resident performers, Cristina Madeira, Diogo Clemente and Isabel Figueiredo.
As I was leaving, a waiter drew my attention to what has come to be known as the club’s most unique feature, the Moorish Well in the middle of the dining hall and the legends related to its ‘wish-granting’ abilities. But with my most immediate wish of immersing myself in fado granted, I had no apparent need for it. And so, I walked out into the inky black night thinking that melancholia wasn’t that bad after all.
Raul Dias is a Mumbai-based food and travel writer who is an ardent devotee of the peripatetic way of life.
