Goan cop is singer at heart

 With the wide release of his first album of Konkani songs here last week, Tavares underscores his enduring passion for the Goan “tiatr” tradition.

The DVD/VCD album, shot in various locales in Goa over 35 days, has lyrics and songs composed by Tavares and performed by a spectrum of Konkani star singers and stage artists. The album is produced by his brother-in-law.

But it isn’t every other day that one sees a real cop — uniform and all — star in a video CD. DySP Tavares who sings two songs in the album had to get it officially approved. His video “Police Porjek” (pro-people police) would help promote a more friendly image of the Goa police force, the top brass here felt.

Tavares has been a cop for 23 years, but ask him what is more difficult — to run the Mapusa police station which he heads as the sub-divisional officer or to sing in a “tiatr”, and he replies with little hesitation: “I love to wear the uniform, but ‘tiatr’ runs in my family.”

And indeed it is families like his, which has been actively engaged in the “tiatr” in their Cuncolim village from the early ‘70s, that have kept alive a vibrant Goan Catholic tradition.
Tavares DVD was released simultaneously in Swindon and Wembley, UK and other parts of the world where Goans are concentrated, in Canada, the Gulf and USA.