A Talent Finally Unveiled

Santan Viegas is a man with a flair for writing and his talent is reflected in his lyrics. He has over a thousand songs to his credit. His passion for Konkani and Konkani music is reflected in his compositions. However, Santan has not restricted himself to writing lyrics only. He is very actively involved in promoting young talent helping them hone their skills so that they can confidently rub shoulders with professionals.

A talent can never be suppressed or remain hidden. Just like the night cannot hold back the sunlight, and it emerges even brighter the next morning, so has Santan H G Viegas, a highly talented son of Taleigao, who worked but never got the rightly deserved credit, risen. If you sow you will definitely reap and that is exactly what has happened today. He kept on sowing seeds of his talent in the field of theatre, art and social work, without expecting anything in return. He is always there, hands out-stretched to help people.

Santan has been writing lyrics for over four decades for no commercial gains. His songs, sung by the youngsters have earned both recognition and awards. He detests the songs written these days as he feels that they contain a lot of vulgarity in the form of double-entendres-‘it is both embarrassing and unpleasant to the ears’, he says. He feels that to gain money and popularity one need not resort to such kind of lyrics. One can attract the audience with decent writing. So why not opt for decency and maintain the self respect of the Konkani drama, as was done in the days gone by.

Mr Santan maintains that he does not mean to offend the other writers. He only wants to request them to stop writing songs and scripts, which make use of indecent language and instead fill it with lot of morals and educative messages that would make people take the right path in life because people look up to the stage artists as role models.

He has written and composed a great variety of songs based on comedy, social, political and of course dramatic themes. Till date he has about a thousand songs to his credit with famous tiatrists like Mil-Mel-Nel who gave voice to his compositions. The songs were outstanding.

This is not all. He also had a flair for acting, which he polished by working with various tiatrists. Unfortunately Santan went unnoticed but today just like the light after a long dark night he has come out shining even brighter. His hard work finally paid off when he was honoured with the prestigious Kala Gaurav award on May 30, 2006. The award made him work harder still.

His songs are very meaningful and family oriented. One can get truly memorized by his songs. His songs not only make one stand up in awe but have also won him prestigious awards and at a recently held tiartr competition organized by the Vandhana Production in Margao, his songs ‘Aids Pida’, sung by the sisters Ezilda and Dorothy, and ‘Uzvaad’, sung by Aldair and Anjali Figueiredo, secured the first place and ‘Ithas’ won a consolation prize. ‘Aids Pida’, sung by Xavier Almeida won the first place at a competition organized at the Kala Academy.

When Peter Figueiredo approached him with the idea of erecting a statue of Dr Jack Sequeira, he immediately wrote two songs narrating the history of Dr Jack Sequeira, on how he fought for the individual identity of our state when a move was on to merge it with Maharashtra.

Writing, directing, acting are not the only things he has done. He has been a dynamic social worker especially helping out the alcoholics, who want to turn over a new leaf. He does it through his love and affection for people. This proves that he is not only a talented man but also a man with a golden heart. He is and will always be an inspiring element to the Goans.

Recently Mr Viegas released a CD titled Opinion Pollacho Bapp (Father of the Opinion Poll) Dr Jack De Sequeira, as a tribute to Dr Jack De Sequeira for his dedicated service to our state. He has penned down all the lyrics in his signature pure and clean style, for this CD. True to his spirits Santan has used both professional and fresh singers for the album. He loves encouraging new talent and he has used his own album as a platform to promote budding talents.

Santan is back to doing his bit of good, through his lyrics and music, after a long break. There was a phase when he was addicted to alcohol, which nearly killed him. With the help of Alcoholics Anonymous Santan overcame his addiction and once more stepped into the field that is his first love, doing what he believes in-spreading the good word and promoting young talent.

By Rosy Da Silva
The Navhind Times, Zest
Saturday, September 1, 2007

Posted By : Rosy Da Silva, Goa on 06/10/2007