Ravindra Kelekar
Encyclopedia
Ravindra Kelekar was a noted India
n author who wrote primarily in the Konkani language
, though he also wrote in Marathi
and Hindi
. A Gandhian activist, freedom fighter and a pioneer in the modern Konkani movement, he is a well known Konkani scholar, linguist, and creative thinker. Kelkar was a participant in the Indian freedom movement, Goa’s liberation movement, and later the campaign against the merger of the newly formed Goa
with Maharashtra
. He played a key role in the founding of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal, which lead the literary campaign for the recognition of Konkani as a full-fledged language, and its reinstatement as the state language of Goa. He authored nearly 100 books in the Konkani language, including Amchi Bhas Konkaneech, Shalent Konkani Kityak, Bahu-bhashik Bharatant Bhashenche Samajshastra and Himalayant, and also edited Jaag magazine for more than two decades.
Kelekar died at Apollo Hospital at Margao, Goa at around 11.30 am on Friday August 27. He was 85.
His remains were cremated with State honours at his native village of Priol.
Kelekar received the Padma Bhushan
(2008),
the Gomant Sharada Award of Kala Academy,
the Sahitya Akademi Award
(1976),
and the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
(2007)—the highest award of the Sahitya Akademi
, India's National Academy of Letters.
He also received the 2006 Jnanpith Award
, the first ever awarded to an author writing in the Konkani language,
which was presented in July 2010.
in South Goa
. His father, Dr Rajaram Kelekar, was a physician who later became renowned for his Portuguese translation of the Bhagwad Gita. While still a student at the Lyceum High School in Panaji, Kelekar joined the Goa liberation movement
in 1946. This brought him in close contact with several local and national leaders, including Ram Manohar Lohia
, under whose influence he was able to recognize the power of language to mobilize the local populace. Later, he saw the potential in his native Konkani language, which became his lifelong work.
, to be with noted Gandhian and writer Kakasaheb Kalelkar. Kelekar stayed under Kalelkar's tutelage until 1955, when he was appointed librarian of the Gandhi Memorial Museum in New Delhi
. This turned out to be short-lived, as only a year later he plunged back into the Goa freedom movement. With a mission to reconnect the Goan diaspora
all over the world, he started the weekly, Gomant Bharati (1956–60),
published in the Roman script from Bombay. Soon after, being an active participant in Goa's struggle for freedom, he was imprisoned by the Portuguese. He was released when the Indian Army
invaded and annexed Goa in 1961.
He joined the socio-political campaign against the merger of Goa into the neighbouring Maharashtra state, which ended after the plebiscite of 1967, with Goa retaining its separate identity albeit as a union territory
. Goa retained this status until 1987, when it was declared a separate state.
After Goa's independence, Kelekar took to literary activism, in the form of getting his native Konkani language its due status as an independent language, rather than as just a dialect
of Marathi. He was compared favorably with pioneers in the Konkani literary movement, such as Shenoi Goembab
.
During this period, he wrote some of his most important works promoting the Konkani language, including Aamchi Bhas Konkanich (1962), a dialogue revealing the importance of Konkani to the common man on the street; Shallent Konkani Kityaak (1962), highlighting the significance of having Konkani medium schools in Goa; and A Bibliography of Konkani Literature in Devanagari, Roman and Kannada characters (1963).
In February 1987, the Goa Legislative Assembly had passed the Official Language Bill making Konkani the Official Language of Goa.
The struggle ended in 1992, when Konkani was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution as an official language.
With life's mission completed, Kelkar retired from public life, focusing mainly of his writing.
On February 26, 1975, the Sahitya Akademi
, India's National Academy of Letters, recognized Konkani as an independent language.
The first Sahitya Akademi Award
for a work in Konkani was won by Kelekar for his travelogue, Himalayant, in 1977.
The Akademi's first Translation Award in Konkani also went to Kelekar in 1990 for Ami Taankan Manshant Haadle, a Konkani translation of a collection of essays in Gujarati, Mansaeena Diva, by Jhaverchand Meghani
.
He received the 2006 Jnanpith Award
, which was the first given to a Konkani-language writer. The pinnacle of his career came with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
for lifetime achievement in 2007. A lifelong proponent of regional languages, in his acceptance speech for the Jnanpith award, he said, "People have stopped reading books in regional languages. On the other hand, through English, we have created Bonsai intellectuals, Bonsai
writers and Bonsai readers."
When the Vishwa Konkani Sahitya Academy, an offshoot of the Konkani Language and Cultural Foundation, was set up in 2006, the first work it took up for translation was Velavaylo Dhulo, a collection of Kelekar's essays.
His books have been translated into Hindi and other North India
n languages, and are used by universities.
Kelekar lived in his ancestral home—built by his father in 1937—called "Kelekar House", in the village of Priol
in central Goa. The Casa Dos Kelekars, as it is formally known, is now seen as exemplary of a typical Goan Saraswat Brahmin
community home.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n author who wrote primarily in the Konkani language
Konkani language
KonkaniKonkani is a name given to a group of several cognate dialects spoken along the narrow strip of land called Konkan, on the west coast of India. This is, however, somewhat an over-generalisation. Geographically, Konkan is defined roughly as the area between the river Damanganga to the north...
, though he also wrote in Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
and Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
. A Gandhian activist, freedom fighter and a pioneer in the modern Konkani movement, he is a well known Konkani scholar, linguist, and creative thinker. Kelkar was a participant in the Indian freedom movement, Goa’s liberation movement, and later the campaign against the merger of the newly formed Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
with Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
. He played a key role in the founding of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal, which lead the literary campaign for the recognition of Konkani as a full-fledged language, and its reinstatement as the state language of Goa. He authored nearly 100 books in the Konkani language, including Amchi Bhas Konkaneech, Shalent Konkani Kityak, Bahu-bhashik Bharatant Bhashenche Samajshastra and Himalayant, and also edited Jaag magazine for more than two decades.
Kelekar died at Apollo Hospital at Margao, Goa at around 11.30 am on Friday August 27. He was 85.
His remains were cremated with State honours at his native village of Priol.
Kelekar received the Padma Bhushan
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...
(2008),
the Gomant Sharada Award of Kala Academy,
the Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
(1976),
and the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
The Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is a literary honour in India. Awarded by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, to the "immortals of literature," and limited to twenty one individuals at any given time, it is the highest literary honour conferred by the Government of India...
(2007)—the highest award of the Sahitya Akademi
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi ', India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India...
, India's National Academy of Letters.
He also received the 2006 Jnanpith Award
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
, the first ever awarded to an author writing in the Konkani language,
which was presented in July 2010.
Early life and education
Kelekar was born on March 25, 1925, in the city of CuncolimCuncolim
Cuncolim is a city and a municipal council in South Goa district in the state of Goa, India.-Etymology:The name Cuncolim is derived from the fact that the village was known as Kumkumahalli .-Geography:Cuncolim is located at...
in South Goa
South Goa
South Goa is one of the two districts that comprise the state of Goa, India. The district has an area of 1,966 km² and a population of 586,591...
. His father, Dr Rajaram Kelekar, was a physician who later became renowned for his Portuguese translation of the Bhagwad Gita. While still a student at the Lyceum High School in Panaji, Kelekar joined the Goa liberation movement
Goa liberation movement
The Goa liberation movement was a movement that sought to end the Portuguese colonial rule in Portuguese India. It began in the early 20th century and gained strength between 1940 to 1961. It was preceded by many smaller revolts...
in 1946. This brought him in close contact with several local and national leaders, including Ram Manohar Lohia
Ram Manohar Lohia
Rammanohar Lohia was an Indian freedom fighter and a socialist political leader.-Early life:Lohia was born in a village Akbarpur in Ambedkar Nagar district, Uttar Pradesh, in India to Hira Lal, a nationalist and Chanda,a teacher. He was born to Marwari Maheshwari family. His mother died when he...
, under whose influence he was able to recognize the power of language to mobilize the local populace. Later, he saw the potential in his native Konkani language, which became his lifelong work.
Career
Already deeply influenced by Gandhian philosophy, in 1949 Kelekar left his native Goa for WardhaWardha
Wardha is a city and a municipal council in Wardha district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Wardha district. Wardha gets its name from the Wardha River which flows at the North, West and South boundaries of district. Founded in 1866, the town is now an...
, to be with noted Gandhian and writer Kakasaheb Kalelkar. Kelekar stayed under Kalelkar's tutelage until 1955, when he was appointed librarian of the Gandhi Memorial Museum in New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
. This turned out to be short-lived, as only a year later he plunged back into the Goa freedom movement. With a mission to reconnect the Goan diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
all over the world, he started the weekly, Gomant Bharati (1956–60),
published in the Roman script from Bombay. Soon after, being an active participant in Goa's struggle for freedom, he was imprisoned by the Portuguese. He was released when the Indian Army
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...
invaded and annexed Goa in 1961.
He joined the socio-political campaign against the merger of Goa into the neighbouring Maharashtra state, which ended after the plebiscite of 1967, with Goa retaining its separate identity albeit as a union territory
Union Territory
A Union Territory is a sub-national administrative division of India, in the federal framework of governance. Unlike the states of India, which have their own elected governments, union territories are ruled directly by the federal government; the President of India appoints an Administrator or...
. Goa retained this status until 1987, when it was declared a separate state.
After Goa's independence, Kelekar took to literary activism, in the form of getting his native Konkani language its due status as an independent language, rather than as just a dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
of Marathi. He was compared favorably with pioneers in the Konkani literary movement, such as Shenoi Goembab
Shenoi Goembab
Waman Raghunath Shennoi Varde Valaulikar known popularly as Shenoi Goembab was a noted Konkani writer and activist.-Education:...
.
During this period, he wrote some of his most important works promoting the Konkani language, including Aamchi Bhas Konkanich (1962), a dialogue revealing the importance of Konkani to the common man on the street; Shallent Konkani Kityaak (1962), highlighting the significance of having Konkani medium schools in Goa; and A Bibliography of Konkani Literature in Devanagari, Roman and Kannada characters (1963).
In February 1987, the Goa Legislative Assembly had passed the Official Language Bill making Konkani the Official Language of Goa.
The struggle ended in 1992, when Konkani was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution as an official language.
With life's mission completed, Kelkar retired from public life, focusing mainly of his writing.
On February 26, 1975, the Sahitya Akademi
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi ', India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India...
, India's National Academy of Letters, recognized Konkani as an independent language.
The first Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
for a work in Konkani was won by Kelekar for his travelogue, Himalayant, in 1977.
The Akademi's first Translation Award in Konkani also went to Kelekar in 1990 for Ami Taankan Manshant Haadle, a Konkani translation of a collection of essays in Gujarati, Mansaeena Diva, by Jhaverchand Meghani
Jhaverchand Meghani
Jhaverchand Meghani was noted poet, litterateur, social reformer and freedom fighter from Gujarat.He is well known name in the field of Gujarati literature. He was born in Chotila. Mahatma Gandhi spontaneously gave him the title of Raashtreeya Shaayar...
.
He received the 2006 Jnanpith Award
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
, which was the first given to a Konkani-language writer. The pinnacle of his career came with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
The Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is a literary honour in India. Awarded by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, to the "immortals of literature," and limited to twenty one individuals at any given time, it is the highest literary honour conferred by the Government of India...
for lifetime achievement in 2007. A lifelong proponent of regional languages, in his acceptance speech for the Jnanpith award, he said, "People have stopped reading books in regional languages. On the other hand, through English, we have created Bonsai intellectuals, Bonsai
Bonsai
is a Japanese art form using miniature trees grown in containers. Similar practices exist in other cultures, including the Chinese tradition of penjing from which the art originated, and the miniature living landscapes of Vietnamese hòn non bộ...
writers and Bonsai readers."
When the Vishwa Konkani Sahitya Academy, an offshoot of the Konkani Language and Cultural Foundation, was set up in 2006, the first work it took up for translation was Velavaylo Dhulo, a collection of Kelekar's essays.
His books have been translated into Hindi and other North India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n languages, and are used by universities.
Personal life
Kelekar married Godubai Sardessai in 1949; their son Guirish was born within a year.Kelekar lived in his ancestral home—built by his father in 1937—called "Kelekar House", in the village of Priol
Priol
Priol is a village in central Goa, in western India.It is situated in Ponda Taluka, north of the city of Ponda. The Mangueshi Temple is located northwest of the village.From Mardol Priol is around 2km, Mardol is on Panaji-Ponda highway...
in central Goa. The Casa Dos Kelekars, as it is formally known, is now seen as exemplary of a typical Goan Saraswat Brahmin
Saraswat Brahmin
The Saraswats are a Brahmin caste of India.- History :According to the legend, Saraswat Brahmins are Brahmins who lived on the banks of the former Saraswati River that once flowed in northern India. Although it is said that at Prayag the three rivers meet or met.the fact is that the Saraswati never...
community home.
Konkani
- Navi Shala
- Satyagrah
- Mangal Prabhat
- Mahatma
- Ashe Ashille Gandhiji
- Katha ani Kanyo
- Tulshi
- Velevoilio Ghulo
- Bhaja Govindam
- Uzvadeche Sur
- Bhashechem Samaj Shashtra
- Mukti
- Teen eke Teen
- Lala Bala
- Brahmandantlem Tandav
- Panthastha
- Samidha
- Vothambe
- Sarjakachi Antar Katha
External links
- Konkani luminary Ravindra Kelekar at The Times of IndiaThe Times of IndiaThe Times of India is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language newspaper in the world, across all formats . It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd...