in 2003 a portuguese guitarist antonio chainho was in goa offering guitar training interestingly this room is not the only source from where she draws her inspirations its in her car during long drives when new songs are composed and lyrics are written in her head born to a roman catholic mother and a hindu father she celebrates both diwali and christmas with equal fervor though she speaks highly about lisbon ponda continues to feel like home for plenty of reasons she herself has dabbled with western classical bollywood pop and even folk songs for tiatrs and someday may even do a fado fusion with the abovementioned song types singing was always a hobby at home and she sang at various college events and programmes this experience as a professional singer inspired her to a career in singing being a teacher came naturally to shirsat who had by then established herself as a dynamic orator at many events including winning the first prize at an international competition held 1997 at hawaii where she represented the jaycees of asia pacific she is as proficient in the kitchen as she is in the garden so when and how did fado happen all of the above takes a back seat because its now shadowed by her music career she recalled for instance how as a child she was told about her grandmother who would engagingly listen to fado on the radio and scribble lyrics of the songs if not a singer what would sonia shirsat be say sonia shirsat and the first thought is the fado singer shirsat has never taken refuge in the comfort of singing only a particular genre of songs and believes it is enriching for an artiste to experiment within their own form and explore other forms too the multifaceted artiste has already become a household name in goa but there is much more to her than meets the eyes the songstress from ponda speaks little about her relationship status but for all the eligible bachelors out there a warning you first have to get past raikar fondekar and khandeparkar her three possessive yet adorable canines she adopted from the streets and who adore her more than her biggest fans there are folders of such compilations of lyrics written down in 2002 she joined another band status 4 and ever since she has been a versatile member of the crew with her ability to sing comfortably in english konkani and hindi a teacher she says but for now composing songs for different festivals and rehearsing for concerts takes up most of her time she loves her goa sausages and every dish that includes it as a prime ingredient she went on to complete her llb and llm at the vm salgaocar college of law and even lectured there for a couple of years they never converted and stayed true to their beliefs but this taught us to respect other religions and made me realize that beyond