The tiatr ‘Portugalak Gelo’ by C Alvares had a successfulrun, and this show was to be staged in Poona. I too had a good role in thistiatr. When I resided in Mumbai, Remmie Colaco would come and stay with mewhenever he performed there. The scheduled show in Poona was to be staged onSaturday night, so we had to leave by the 3:20 pm train from Mumbai to proceedto Poona. The tiatr contractor had already provided us with our tickets, but itjust so happened that for some reason, that Saturday noon our lunch was delayedand hence we took a taxi from our residence to proceed to the Boribunderrailway station. On the way to the railway station, the traffic police put hishand out and signaled us to stop. We stopped, but for a long time the policedid not bring down his raised hand and so we had to remain put. There was allcommotion on the street. Since the policeman was not bringing down his raisedhand a few taxi drivers got down from their taxi and began to scream at thepolice. A little later they realised that the police man suffered a stiffnessof the raised arm due to a ‘catch’ or something and he could not bring theraised hand down. Thereafter someone helped him to get down.
In the bargain we were delayed and in this commotion thetaxi driver took a wrong diversion as a result of which it took us a muchlonger time to reach the railway station. After we got down from the taxi, paidthe driver and ran to the railway platform we realized that the Mumbai Poonatrain had just left the station. In fact we could see the last coach leavingthe platform. We were in panic and did not know what to do. While Remmie Colacohad to sing in the tiatr, I was playing a major role. Having no otheralternative, we took another taxi and headed straight to Eastern end of theDadar station. Those days there were ‘sharing taxis’ going to Poona from there(they operate to this day). We took a ‘sharing taxi’ and headed straight to Poona.We arrived in Poona at around 9:30 pm and headed directly to the tiatr venue.
In the meantime seeing that I had still not turned up forthe show, the director C Alvares prepared Rico Rod to substitute me and play myrole. That actor was all set to play my role. The tiatr had already started andthe first song was going on. On seeing us reach the venue C Alvares wasoverjoyed. In order to give me a little more time to change over to my role, headjusted by including one additional song between the acts so that I could getready. I took the stage and performed my scene. Everything went off well andthe co-artistes were happy.
- Cyriaco Dias
(As recounted to Daniel F de Souza)