Anthony Prabhu Gonsalves, the Goan music composer who was Laxmikant-Pyarelal‘s muse for the hit song in the 1977 Manmohan Desai film Amar Akbar Antony is no more.
“Wait, wait, wait. You see, the whole country of the system is juxtaposition by the haemoglobin in the atmosphere because you are a sophisticated rhetorician intoxicated by the exuberance of your own verbosity…”
Also read: My name is Anthony Gonsalves. Do you know…?
Naresh Fernandes: Remembering Anthony Gonsalves
churumuri 
very few people know about APG. He and many more of his ilk were responsible for our immense liking of music from our independence.
all of them stayed in the shadows.
when you reall dig deeper you realise the genius in them.
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During the early period of hindi film music, all three major religions peacefully coesixted.
Most of the composers were hindus.. they had good hold on the hindustaani raagas and they could tune a song based on these ragas.
The lyricists were muslims since urdu was the language predominantly used in the film songs.
That left a huge gap in terms of arranging the orchestra. An indepth knowledge of ragas is one thing, writing music which the performers understood was quite another. This is where the musicians from Goa, predominantly Catholic Chrisitians, filled the gap. They knew how to play the western instruments. Because many of them worked in the Jazz bands of Bombay during 30’s and 40’s, they knew about arranging music and musicians.
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The original name of the character Amitabh Played in AAA was Anthony Fernandes. Laxmikant requested Desai to change it to Gonsalves to honour his teacher. (From the “Total Recall? programme telecast by Times Now on Saturdays and Sundays). Thanks to Times Now for duly acknowledging the contributions of unknown faces, who too have contributed to the Hindi film music greately. APG RIP.
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Reproduced from the article ‘Remembering Anthony Gonsalves’ by Naresh Fernandes:
“..Every Sunday, his apartment at Sushila Sadan on Bandra’s Linking Road was thrown open to eager students, two of whom – R.D. Burman and Pyarelal – would become significant composers themselves. ..”
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