TRISCA FERNANDES – THE GOAN SINGING PRODIGY

There are a lot of people who pursue their educational journey as per the wishes of their parents despite the facts that they do not belong there. The story of Trisca is similar to this. According to Trisca, she has been born with the singing talent. You can even call it a child prodigy as Trisca realized about her talent of singing at the age of two but her parents did not realize that this talent will take her one day to the heights in the world of music they have never dreamt of. They took her talent lightly as a hobby and sent her to study science. Talent is an emotion which cannot be suppressed by anybody and anything, it comes up one day and that is what happened in the case of Trisca.

I have been known to Trisca for quite some time over the social network, the place where hundreds of thousands of people meet each other every day. Incredible Goa normally tries to promote the budding talents from the diverse field and in the process, I met Trisca one day to have a chat with her about her journey into the world of music. Trisca, very bubbly and full of life kind of woman who is also highly talented and career oriented. After almost 45 minutes of talk with Trisca, I have managed to put this piece of the article together.

As I mentioned earlier in this article that Trisca is a born artist but despite that, she has pursued her studies into the science stream. “Education wise I have done my BSC in Home Science (Foods & Nutrition) and I did my PG in counseling from Bombay University and after that, I started working with the NGO called Sangath at Porvorim as a remedial teacher. After working for 6 years in Sangath I joined as project co-ordinator for an HIV-AIDS project in Chimbel for 2 years. After that, I worked on a project for adolescents and after that, I worked for a school in Margao dealing with the mentally challenged students. Over there I was teaching them vocational, bakery, stitching etc,” said Trisca.

Trisca told me that as a 2-year-old kid she used to sing holding the tea cup as a mic and posting like a singer. “My mother told me, when I was just two years old I used to perform holding the cup in my hand like a mic and posting like a superstar. I used to imagine as if I am standing on the stage and a big crowd is there in front of me. Later when I grew up I started singing in the small birthday parties which I used to attend,” she said.

Trisca told me that she has a collection of the certificates right from the KG-I. “I used to attend all the cultural programs that are taking place in the school. I used to participate in programs that used to take place in our school,” said Trisca. According to Trisca, she did her studies in the St. Joseph High School in Margao. It’s a convent school and she used to stay in the boarding since her parents were aboard on the account of work. “The real singing started in the convent where I used to be a part of Choir singing group in the church. I remember one incident of school group singing and I was standing in the last row, but the teacher saw me and asked me to come in the front row right in front of the mic and that made me realize that I am better than other students,” she narrated.

One incident changed the life of Trisca. As she narrated that she was from the village school and students used to make fun of her broken English. “I used to always be the backbencher since I would hardly understand the English then. I used to listen to whatever teacher would say in the class and try to understand the same. Many times I did not know what to do and I used to sit in one corner and cry. I was about to lose my confidence and then this incident took place and teacher brought be right in the the front row and that made me realize that I also have something better than others and my confidence level boosted and I started feeling that I am also better than others but in the field of singing,” she said.

After that day there was no looking back for Trisca. She told her seniors that she wants to participate in the singing competition and they helped her with the song. “Within five minutes I recited the song “Have you got a Sunshine smile” and I bagged the first place. It was the first accolade of my life and I still remember, it was the Blue Mug,” she said with pride.

Trisca did her SSC from the St. Joseph High School and later for her further studies she went to Chowgule College and took the admission in a science stream against her wish. “My parents told me to opt for the science stream and I had no choice then. I was also not sure as what I wanted to do in my life and I preferred to follow the instructions of my mother. My Mother said, go for science and then you can do anything in life. After completing BSC I went to Bombay for my PG in counseling and was in a hostel again. Till that time also nobody thought that I would go into singing as nobody realizes that a hobby can become a profession one day,” said Trisca.

Trisca said that she always loved singing and she also did the aptitude test in Bombay University and that time the results came out as Singing. “The result of the test made me feel, what I am doing here when my actual field is completely different.                   But still I thought that career is different and hobby is different and I never thought that one day I would make my hobby as my profession,” she said.

Trisca, who is married for almost 12 years now, having two kids, both daughters finally came into the music field seven years back. It was the great challenge for Trisca to manage the family and profession together but according to her, the full support of her husband played a major role here. “I have been married for 12 years and the band I joined with my partner (co-singer) 7 years back. I have two daughters one is 12 years and second is 9. My husband being in the same field of music he supported me a lot. When by baby was 5 years old he encouraged me to get on with the career, without his help I could not have managed to juggle between my family and my profession,” she said.

Trisca told me that she is got married when she was just 22 years old and that was soon after she finished her studies. “I met my soul mate in the church Choir band  where he used to play guitar. He fell in with me. He also plays for the band which has completed 25 years. I asked him about starting a duo band since I wanted to take up singing as full time but he declined since he did not like singing and he wanted to be with his own band they did not require female singer in their band. I realized that if I want to do something then it should be me solo. I thought of doing something solo after 5 years of marriage that is because I was without the job for almost 1 year,” she said.

According to Trisca while doing her solo she met this guy called Danzil who is also her partner and they run a duo band in the name of “DNT Bands”. “I was always into Hindi Bollywood songs and I love it. I did my vocal training under Ram Rao Naik for 4 years in Kalangan at Margao. This vocal training gave me a good exposure to Shastriya Sangeet. I gave my first exam when my baby was in my tummy. Although my vocal training started very late but it helped me a lot in improving my voice modulation which I always wanted to learn,” she said.

According to Trisca, her specialty is always been the Bollywood and English came naturally. “Today I am traveling because of Bollywood. I have almost covered the whole of India except for northeast because of shows. This is done by me and my partner Denzil. We both sing and perform. Our performance is not restricted to the stage alone, but we go to the crowd, get them on the floor, dancing. We do these shows mostly for weddings and corporate events. The biggest event that we have done so far is for the Bollywood Badshah Shahrukh Khan. We opened up for his NDTV show, we did the wedding of Anupam Mittal, owner of the website shaadi.com which was in Jaipur. We also sang for Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, and many Bollywood celebrities. It’s been a good exposure for the past few years and the credit goes to one of our Coordinator who we met in Mumbai. He is the one who guided us. The talent has always been there but the opportunity that he has exposes to other people is incredible,” narrated Trisca.

When I asked Trisca about her aim in the life besides performing in the parties and hotels she said that she is in process of coming out with the own album. “Personally my main aim is that I see a lot of Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil songs coming in the cinema. It’s very rare that our Goan music has reached to that level. Now we are working on it and we started with a song which has a fusion of Hindi and Konkani and we are working on it. The main thing is to get the Goan music in Cinema,” said Trisca.

Trisca has also done playback in few Konkani movies. “I did one song for movie “Hanv Tu TU Hanv” and one for movie “MMS”. In Goa, people know me for certain songs or albums that are there on the TV but till now I am not known as a singer for Goa. Now I have the dream of getting into the Bollywood and I am sure soon I will get an opportunity to sing a song for Hindi movie,” she said.        

Trisca now wants to expand her and cash on to all the available opportunities and to do that she is continuously working on the marketing aspects. “Every day I would be on my emails, sending my profiles & links because this is a part of my job and I have taken this job very seriously. Singing for me now does not remain as a hobby, but it has become a profession and passion and I love doing it. Even when I joined the vocal training, I joined it because people used to ask me questions like “ooh you’re a singer what training have you done?” and then I was like why do I need training? So I had an answer that I did my vocal training. It is my hard work and blessings voice modulation training. Even for Denzil, it was difficult. When we were pairing up and forming this band, everybody was confused like what job will be doing. It took us one year to come to a conclusion about what job will be doing. We both had to get out of our jobs and work as a pair in our career of singing,” Trisca narrated.

According to Trisca, she always received the full support from her family especially her husband who has been her main pillar of support throughout this journey. “My husband is very understanding and broad minded and we give each other space. He never questions me because I have always been on my own. Now my kids are so independent. If my family was not so supportive, I would not move out to achieve something because I am not that type of girl who will go against their wish,” she said.

“People always ask me how I manage with family and career together. Firstly we need to understand our capabilities, the minute you understand what you want to do in life and if you want to go across it, the whole universe conspires I believe in that very well. You first need to see what you want to do in your life. Your passion is very important and you have to take support from your family, friends to get into it which is very important. So go ahead and fulfill your wishes because we just have one life. I never realized that when actually I decided to make singing as my profession. Maybe when my project of the NGO got over then I had to switch on to another job. When I was searching for another job, I met this guy Denzil who I sing along with,” Trisca concluded with these words.