India’s original pop star tells all
When you mention singer Remo Fernandes, you immediately think of songs like Maria Pita Che, Jalwa, Humma Humma, O Meri Munni, The Flute Song and the Pepsi jingle Yehi Hai Right Choice Baby. In many ways, he’s been the pop ambassador of Goa.
One would expect a good chunk of his autobiography to talk about his songs and his experiences with the music industry. However, music forms only one part of this book. Over nearly 480 pages, one gets a thorough and honest look into his multifaceted personality.
Indeed, this is the story of his adventures — creative, musical, geographical and sexual.
Broadly, the book takes readers through a journey that covers his upbringing in Portuguese Goa, early passion for music, architecture studies in Bombay, hitchhiking adventures in Europe and North Africa with former companion Isa, his return to Goa, marriage to Michele, fatherhood, divorce, the fatal accident involving band members, and his decision to stay in Porto, Portugal. Two important parts of his life – his creation of Teresa & The Slum Bum, a modern opera dedicated to Mother Teresa, and his marriage to “Facebook friend” Zenia, wind up the book.
Naturally, such a story would involve a string of anecdotes. Remo narrates them smoothly, blending detailed description with occasional dashes of humour. Born in Panjim on May 8, 1953, he was baptised Luis Remo de Maria Bernardo Fernandes. “I guess people weren’t required to fill up immigration forms that often those days,” he quips. The family was financially comfortable, and Remo’s father Bernardo had left a job in Bombay to start an aerated-water factory in Goa.
Remo’s first musical instrument was the mouth organ, gifted by his father. At home, music would be played on a German Nordmende radiogram, and the record collection was a mix of big brass dance bands, western classical symphonies, music from Brazil, Italy, England and the US, besides Portuguese fados and Konkani mandos.
His own tastes were driven by Cliff Richard, Hank Marvin, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He started playing the ukulele, banjo and guitar but hated being trained on how to read music.
“The written, seen note was not music to me; the played, heard note was,” he says.
To revive the Konkani folk song, his father started a mando festival with scholar Bob Moraes. This exposed Remo to the music world, and he began singing and playing in bands, early ones being Billy Rangers and Beat 4. Later, moving to Bombay to study architecture, he joined the Savages along with keyboardist Prabhakar Mundkur, bassist Ralph Paes and drummer Bashir Sheikh.
Before Remo became a known name, he spent a considerable amount of time travelling abroad, even busking to make ends meet. Once he returned to Goa, he decided to focus on the three things he loved — music, drawing and writing.
He began composing music, playing at the Taj Fort Aguada Beach Resort, designing postcards and writing poetry. Things went smoothly till that fatal accident, when four members of his band Microwave
Papadums were killed on a postshow drive from Kanpur to Lucknow. After some turmoil, he decided to play with a new line-up. One of Remo’s favourite moments was playing with British band Jethro Tull in Dubai in 2005. That’s where he got to spend time with the band’s frontman Ian Anderson, whose quotes appear as blurbs on the book’s cover. “He tells the story of his passions and adventures in music and the arts in an educated but entertaining way,” says Anderson.
Though the book has many engrossing moments, it could have been a bit shorter. Some details about past affairs don’t really add value in the larger context, though Remo says there are many things he hasn’t written about too. Rock fans would have loved to know more about his “lip-synced” appearance with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page at the 1996 Channel V Awards, but he mentions it only in passing, even erroneously typing (Deep Purple’s) Ian Gillan instead of
Plant. Yet, these are minor issues in a b k that brings out Remo’s personality in fascinating detail. This is an honest and fearless autobiography, and that’s what is important.