Awfully 'Off-side'! BY VINAYAK NAIK (Editorial in March 2006 issue of Goa Today)
Following my censuring of some of the bigwigs of Devnagari Konkani, some time back, I was quietly hopeful of seeing them mend their ways and give the Romi adherents their rightful share of the mother-lingual cake. Unfortunately, far from doing that, they appear to have tightened their grip on it even further. What a shame! The recent Konkani literary conclave, from which the upholders of Romi understandably stayed away, saw the concretisation of the rupture in the Konkani Movement down the middle. To keep the Konkani Movement in one piece, all that the Devnagariphiles had to do was to bend a bit. But, rather than bend, they chose to let the Movement break. Ironically, the selfsame guys, whose intransigence has brought about Konkani's current plight, still claim to be deeply enamoured of their mother tongue. How phoney can one be? Honestly, now, one can't really help wondering whether Konkani's elevation to the Official Language and the Eighth Schedule status was at all called for. The reason for this is the belated discovery of the Devnagariphiles' devious design of 'tricking' their Romi brethren into submission after the accomplishment of their joint mission. One recalls how, when the Official language status was accorded to Konkani, some of these 'ants' of Devnagari Konkani, overnight, metamorphosed into self-styled literary giants. They became the beneficiaries of a virtual windfall. Yes, the Romis did the bulk of the 'spadework' for Konkani, but it is the Devnagaris who are scoring. This can't go on. Their goals need to be nullified. They're awfully 'off-side'! A Devnagari Konkani heavyweight had the cheek to tell me to stay away from the raging script-row. According to him, since I had neither read any books in Devnagari Konkani nor in Romi, I just didn't fill the bill to be the adjudicator in this matter. But that's silly! Not having read any books in Romi and Devnagari Konkani should, in fact, lend extra weightage to my judgement, since it's bound to be dispassionate. Yet another one tried to join issue with me recently over what I had written regarding the invidiously discriminatory nature of Konkani's Sahitya Akademi awards. He said the Devnagari writers have always offered to help the Romi writers in transliterating their works in Devnagari, so as to make them eligible for the Sahitya awards. "So, where is the injustice?" he queried. But my counter question to him is, why transliterate the Romi works? Why not the other way round? We know of the provision of 'writers' to the visually impaired in answering their exams. Does the gentleman in question and others of his ilk believe that the Romi writers are visually impaired to necessitate that kind of assistance? Why disable the able bodied? That's bigotry at its worst! Some of the diehard Devnagaris are acting as though theirs is a 'divine descent'--- from the Nagar of Dev to Govapuri to spread the culture of Devnagari. What makes me uncontrollably angry is the near-unanimous dismissal of Romi literature as substandard by each and every supporter of Devnagari-Konkani I have come across so far. Some say it overtly, and some others, covertly. All the same, what they say is the same. My question is, who decides the standard? Definitely the reading public. If what is written in Romi is not up to the mark, then the readers would have summarily rejected it. But just the reverse is happening. Talk to just about any book-vendor in Goa and find out for yourself as to what sells better--- Devnagari Konkani or Romi? The answer is bound to be overwhelmingly in favour of the latter. What more does Romi have to do to prove its standard? Right now, the Romis are on the right course. In their scriptal fight, they appear to have crossed the Rubicon. Which means, for them, retreating from their present position is impossible. They are demanding nothing short of an absolute 'parity' for Romi. And it's my gut feeling, they'll get it. ===== _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
