A Fiddler is one of the best poems ever written in the annals of Indian poetry in English and that Joseph Furtado could deal with poetry and mazak fusing into one nobody could think it then as he was ahead of time. The poet goes down the valley and the streets just like a piper piping and moving into. What is in life if full of cares and worries?

To start reading the poem is to be merry-go-lucky, to see the things in a blithe spirit. How does a fiddler go fiddling? How does a rocker keep rocking? Only a happy man can sing such a song; only a man of some light heart can pen it down. A fiddler from Goa, Joseph Furtado keeps fiddling and singing, and his fiddling reminds us of Hazlitt’s Indian jugglers juggling. To read the poem is to be reminded of ropedancers, country clowns and madaris.

A fiddler of fifty-three, the poet goes fiddling up and down, both country and town, rambling and walking down, breaking his tunes and word notes and singing the song of life and its aimless wandering and joy. A singer of heart, he pipes and goes, he sings and moves on aimlessly, loiters around seeing life. The town swells in and greets with. The country folk too are found to be kind to him. A fiddler he is a happy-go-lucky man.

Have you marked, where do the paths of life go to? Where do the paths of the world take to? A fiddler, he has learnt to live by fun, comic, laughter and joy. There must be the element of joy and laughter in life. We must learn to smile. Can we live without laughter and joy?

No children, no kith or kin has he. He is alone in life, on the paths of life. None is with him. He has not even a home to call its own. He roams and rambles the world all alone. Just let him a-fiddling, let him pass by. Seeing him, the little ones come to following him. They dance around him in the similar way as does he. Even though he has no children, every child seems to be his own. Even though has no kith and kin, the whole world seems to be his own. It is a matter of taking.

How to be happy? is his song, how to be joyous? How to take to the world lightly? This is the main thing. Be a piper of life. Sing you down the paths of the world.

He takes his tunes from the birds and some from the winds that blow, and they are all the tunes that he has come know of which he tries to copy them down. The whiffs and wisps coming from, wafted off to, the gusts of wind blowing, the swaying grass, the rustling leaves, all infuse in a spirit of thrill and pleasure. The singer in Furtado means to say it that he is a poet of birds and flowers, valleys and wilds, towns and hamlets. A fiddler he is of the paths, of the blithe spirit of man. He has no home, no family. He is care-free and happy.

A Fiddler am I of fifty-and-three,
I go fiddling up and down
Both countryside and town,
The town swells they call me Fiddle-dee-dee,
But the country folk are all kind to me
A fiddler am I of fifty-and-three,
Yet no clown though somewhat down.

No children, nor kith nor kin have I,
Not even a home of my own —
I roam in the world alone,
But just let me pass a-fiddling by
And the little ones all come dancing nigh
No children, nor kith nor kin have I,
Yet every child is my own

I take my tunes from the birds on my way
And some from the winds that blow —
They are all the tunes I know,
I hum them o’er as I go and say,
These birds, indeed, what a blessing are they!
(I take my tunes from the birds on my way)
But men they’ll never know!