We The People: Singing Truth To Power

When 10 out of 15 Congress MLAs joined the BJP after the 2022 Goa Assembly elections, one of the strongest voices condemning the move was of sin­ger and self-styled ‘Political Queen’, Olga Vaz. The 40-year-old is Goa’s only woman political singer, known for mincing no wo­r­ds in her songs on corruption, government apathy and inj­us­t­ice of any kind. In retaliation, she released a video, titled BJP-­­che Flight Chuklem (BJP missed the flight) on her eponymous YouTube channel, pointing out that the politicians who had promised to never leave Con­g­r­ess did so out of greed, thereby violating voters’ trust.

Her other recently popular video was Serkar Hasta, Gorib Rodta (Government Laughs, The Poor Cry) aft­er an RTI revealed the state exchequer had spent Rs 5.5 crore on the swearing-in ceremony of Goa CM Pramod Sawant. Like most of her kantare (songs), it addr­e­s­ses socio-political issues: A viral video of a disabled wom­an crying after the local MLA refu­sed to help her, the swearing-in cerem­ony; the Goa home minister caught dri­nking from a mine­ral water bottle that cost Rs 850. “Goans don’t have money to eat, but these politici­ans continue to loot us. I’ll keep spe­aking the truth. I’m not afraid.”

Vaz became passionate about politics and singing by watching her father Liban, a tiatr writer-composer and news junkie. Tiatr is a form of Goan Konkani theatre that combines pordhe (acts) and kantare that mirror the socio-political issues of the times. News on atrocities committed on women like rape, murder, would ang­er her, and when she started acting in tiatrs, Vaz would request fellow artistes to mention such news in their songs. “Finally, I got to sing a political song in Roseferns Dramatic tiatr. The audience called for an encore 7-8 times, which O Herald reported as a record the next day!”

Vaz is among Goa’s few political tiatrists, such as M. Boyer, Wil­­li­mix Mazarello, Tomazinho Cardozo and Francis de Tuem. She has performed the world over and is booked for seven sho­ws in the UK and France next year. Every day, she gets 2-3 calls from fans requesting her to sing on problems like rising petrol prices, lack of proper jobs, etc.

Audiences also enjoy colourful words like colv­ont (person of loose character) that she uses to call out people in her songs. “I don’t hide behind hints, but name the person I am criticising. This way, even my aged or illiterate fans can vote for the right cand­i­date.” As she is currently recuperating from a long illness, there’s a slight delay in her video responses, which would otherwise be out within a day or two of a headline news.

Loved ones keep trying to restrain her with messages like: ‘leave this’, ‘you’re a wom­an', “But I get angry when I hear of any injustice to a wom­an.” Luc­kily, Vaz has a great support system. She credits her success to late mother Jackline and husband tiatrist Anil Pednekar. “Two fans nursed me when I was hosp­italised.” When goo­­ns tried to disrupt a recent performance at Mandur and take her to the cops, the audie­nce stopped them. After she sang about a politic­ian, his men allege­dly bro­ke the doors to barge into her guest house. “But my hus­band said I need not worry, filed complaints and got the doors repa­ired,” says Vaz.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Angry Young Woman")

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