Wisecracking ventriloquist

"Don’t take my interview, take my outer view,” shrieks Andy, the dummy, at the start of the conversation with Gev Tavadia, a ventriloquist. By manipulating his or her voice so that it appears that the voice is coming from elsewhere (usually a wooden dummy or doll, held in the hand in order to operate its facial expressions and lip movements), a ventriloquist is able to impress his audience. It is a practiced skill that is achieved by throwing one’s voice. Here too Andy passes a wise crack of how Tavadia throws his voice down the drain. To any statement that Tavadia makes, Andy is ready with a humorous repartee. If Gev tells Andy that he is too short for a 24-year-old (which is what Andy claims to be) Andy retorts that he was brought up on condensed milk.

Tavadia has performed on programs for TV channels like Star Plus, Sony and Doordarshan and has even hosted a show on ATN.

This voice factory believes that humor should be clean and kept that way even in nightclub performances. "Make the audience laugh at your humor, not obscenity,” he believes. Tavadia recalls well the advice he had received from Marathi actor Nilu Phule: "Make an original story­line involving animals, machinery and birds that would not mind. You might hurt people’s feelings in the audience by mimicking them.” The sensitive ventriloquist has since stopped impersonating people although he continues to imitate birds and animals.

"This art is God’s blessing to me. Today how many people bother to make someone happy or laugh?” asks Tavadia who has noticed that ventriloquism readily appeals to kids. His last perfor­mace was for Razia Zaveri’s Mini Corner Nursery’s annual day function at Nehru Memorial Hall, Poona. The crowd of 500 clapped as Andy entertained the kids and their parents beginning from the stage and then popping up from within the audience in between performances.

Tavaria’s first performance as ventriloquist was at Hotel Sun n Sand, Juhu in 1981 when he was required to fill in for his mentor Claude Kenny who was feeling unwell. The show, normally supposed to be for 20 minutes, went on for 43 minutes non-stop. "I didn’t know I had so much humor in me,” remarks Tavadia whose wife Debbie was in the audience. Based largely on Kenny’s dialogs that he could remember, he occasionally improvised as when seeing an old man coming in with a young lady on his arm Andy had remarked, "I see a little snow on the chimney but the fire is strong within.”

Gev Tavadia and Andy: ready with a humorous repartee

"Couldn’t teach”

Tavadia had first seen Kenny’s ventriloquist act in 1976 when he had come to perform for a function for Thermax. The same program had also included a mimicry item by Tavadia. As accommodation promised by the hosts was not provided, "I took Kenny home. We had a great time and the next thing I knew I asked him to teach me how to perform. He said he couldn’t. I persistently asked him the entire evening and next day but all Kenny said was he couldn’t teach me. Then he let out the secret — he said I already had the art in me. All he could do was polish it up.”

When Tavadia left Thermax five years later he had a young wife with a kid on the way to provide for. He approached Kenny in Thana wondering whether the latter would remember him after all these years. Kenny immediately recognized him and invited him in. He loaned Tavadia some tape recorder spools (in those days there were no cassettes) and literature. A fortnight later Tavadia went back with his preparation and Kenny told him that his progress was good and on his next visit to get along his dummy.

Three weeks after he had started training he got his first break at Sun n Sand. Since then he has never looked back. At subsequent shows, Debbie would continue to sit in the audience and once back home give her feedback and criticism which helped to polish the show further. Later on she became a compere and games hostess for shows and now the couple perform together. They have two sons, Savio who works in a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and Agnel who is the champion DJ (disc jockey) associated with Scream The Club, the popular nightspot at Hotel Le Meridien in Poona. Tavadia cannot help referring to an interview with a news magazine some years ago when the reporter had enquired about the religion of the Tavadias. Agnel, then four years old, had piped up, "My papa is a Parsi and my mamma is an RC — oh no not Royal Challenge but Roman Catholic.” That’s how freely humor flows in the family.

During his spare time Tavadia started working for Mazda Audio Video Lab’s Sarosh Daruwalla and did video recording and DJing. In the absence of suitable equipment in those days to create the sound effects of modern day mixing Tavadia’s vocal chords served as a synthesizer! Then again he was associated with the Parsi theater as stage manager for Roshan and Dinyar Tirandaz’s "Centre Stage.”

For those with an inbuilt brand of humor who want to "learn the art my doors are open. Ventriloquism, I can teach, but the humor they’ve got to get their own,” says Tavadia.

Presently working as site manager for Sharda Construction in Lonavla, the 58-year-old’s hobbies include playing the mouth organ and guitar and listening to music, be it the golden oldies or country music. When he was six years old he played the mouth organ for All India Radio in Bombay and his ring tone is also a mouth organ tune that he has composed.

Ask Tavadia about his views on the community in general — pat comes the reply from Andy, "We are still the same, the same like the sugar dissolved in the bowl of milk sent by the Rana when the first Parsis landed on the coasts off Sanjan. Our sense of humor surpasses all other tribes and communities worldwide. Truly Parsis are the only community who can laugh at themselves. And I am proud to be one.”