Mogal Goenkar bhavano ani bhaynano,
Amcho Ravindrabab Sonsarak aantaralo,
Ravindrabab Gelo!
Padmabhushan Ravindra Kelekar breathed his last after a prolonged illness at
11.30 a.m. at Margao. His death would be the biggest news for days and
weeks, locally, nationally, internationally-such was his image…
He died on a day when we remember blessed Mother Teresa Of Kolkotta,
He died in a year when we are celebrating birth centenary of his close
friend poet laureate of Goa Bakibab Borkar,
He died after having received some of Country's highest literary honours-the
fellowship of sahitaya akademy followed by Dnyanpeeth award,
we expect nothing less than at least two days state mourning and his final
rites with full honours and state salute..
Re-Posting an article on Ravindrabab..written just a month ago….
Ravindra Kelekar: A Cultural Institution
Published on: July 25, 2010 - 22:58
BY NANDKUMAR KAMAT
(Courtesy, The Navhind Times, Monday 26 July 2010)
(http://www.navhindtimes.in/opinion/ravindra-kelekar-cultural-institution)
ON July 31, the prestigious Dnyanpeeth Award would be conferred by the
Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Ms Meira Kumar on veteran Konkani writer, scholar
and philosopher, Ravindra Kelekar, affectionately called ‘Ravindrabab’.
This is also an honour to Goa and the Konkani language which figures in the
world’s top 125 living languages. The ceremony would take place at Kala
Akademy, Goa.
Goan identity, Konkani and Ravindrabab have become synonymous. No writer in
the post-liberation era of Goa had been as influential as him in exerting
and asserting moral and ideological influence on younger generations. The
Dnyanpeeth Award crowns his stellar service of more than 60 years to culture
and literature. At the age of 85, Ravindrabab towers in the contemporary
Goan society as a guiding light of knowledge and wisdom. He has been a
cultural institution himself. He has influenced and moulded at least 3
generations of Konkani writers and set out a clear political, social and
cultural agenda for Konkani language and literature.
By participating actively in politics and being a torch-bearer of the
movement to oppose Goa’s merger with Maharashtra, Ravindrabab carved a
separate and exclusive niche for himself distinguishing him from the
puritans who considered literature as merely a single-minded apolitical
creative activity. His pointed and hard hitting editorials in the literary
magazine which he had founded–the ‘Jag’ Konkani monthly made Goans sit up
and think. Jag continues to be the only exclusively literary and oldest
Konkani monthly in the world today. Ravindrabab offered this literary
platform to young writers who then blazed their own trails on Konkani’s
literary horizon.
Goa’s own Kakasaheb Kalelkar
As a great bibliophile and voracious reader of world literature, Ravindrabab
set high standards for writers and contemporary Goan thinkers. Four decades
ago he said that Konkani would need to promote new subjects like ecology and
cosmology. He may be one of the few writers in India possessing an
astronomical telescope and spending hours watching the night sky from his
courtyard at Priol. Considering the need to present astronomical knowledge
scientifically before the Konkani speakers, Ravindrabab came out with a
Konkani book on Astronomy–‘Brahmandatale tandav’. He was one of the first
writers in India to recognise the need for books on ecology and environment
in Indian languages.
Exposed to contemporary trends and currents in global and national
literature, Ravindrabab’s life was enriched by the great Gandhian scholar,
Kakasaheb Kalelkar. Today for the five million strong Konkani speakers
scattered in more than 100 nations, Ravindrabab is Goa’s Kakasaheb Kalelkar.
His simplicity, non-assuming and affectionate personality, deep humility
before the literary greats and above all his almost fanatic single-minded
faith in the future of Konkani society, culture, language and literature
made him a hero of the Goans during and after the Opinion Poll. Ravindrabab
recognised the 3 aspirations of Goans–recognition for Konkani as the
official language of Goa, statehood and inclusion of Konkani in the Eighth
Schedule of the Constitution of India. Between 1984-1992, these dreams were
realised after a lot of action, advocacy and struggle.
Forseer of Problems facing Goa
When he appeared on Konkani’s literary horizon, there were only a handful of
Konkani books published every year. Since then Konkani has come a long way
thanks to all-round efforts of publishers, writers and scholars. Konkani
publications are flourishing. Very soon the state of Goa alone would publish
more than 100 Konkani books per year. One of largest dictionaries in any
Indian language–a 2029-page Konkani illustrated dictionary published by
Panaji’s Rajhauns shows the power and potential of the modern Konkani
language and its’ linguistic, lexicographic scholarship. Such an effort
would not have been possible without Ravindrabab’s moral
