The death on one of
the greatest Konkani Promoters Shri
Gurunath Kelekar on Tuesday midnight at 3.30 am, was a terrible blow on Konkani
because he was also a great movement maker for the cause of Konkani. His greatest movement single handedly by collecting about
10 Goans in the name of Konkani and formed a Trust and floated a movement
called NOVEM GOEM PRSTISHTHAN, this was his great achievement. Thru
this movement NGP and other Konkani lovers about 42 years ago, walked all over Goa for almost a month covering every part of Goa
organising public meetings and collecting funds for the establishment of
One Konkani Daily Newspaper in 2 Scripts.
According to the Constitution of NGP which was
framed by all the Trustees whose knowledge with the exception of Gurunath
Kelekar, of handling the work of Printing and Press was not much, they said Roman Script Daily will be released
first once the collection reaches to one lakh of Rupees and the Nagri Script will be released later when the collection reaches to 5 lakhs
of Rupees.
In Kuwait I took the responsibility to
organise this movement and for this
purpose we joined together and formed a Committee under NGP Kuwait Somiti under
the Chairmanship of one highly influential Konkani lover and a senior member of
Goan community in Kuwait Mr. A.B. Fernandes.
We organised two Tiatros and from individuals we alone collected a
little less than 5 Lakhs of Rupees which as per our decision we sent it to
NGP-Goa which was headed by Mrs. Sara Machado with the assistance of Dr. F.M. Rebello, Gurunath Kelekar and others.
Besides, money came from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, from Goa itself and elsewhere in the
other parts of Gulf and very little from the West. The highest donation came from Kuwait Goans
making the position of NGP very
comfortable to fulfil its obligation. The
Roman script daily came out and after a few years collapsed while Nagri script
appeared sporadically. People held
Kelekar and Dr. Rebello main culprits for this great calamity but Kkelekar said
he was not responsible for the disaster
of NGP. Then who was responsible?
With this experiment we
came to know how unreliable our Konkani Mogui in Goa acted. Even when we provided them all what they
wanted they failed us and more than that
they failed the Konkani movement.
Gurunath Kelekar as I knew him by closely associating with him, he
was a man of knowledge and wisdom, his
study of public feelings and mood was mostly right and as an editor and writer
his writings are worth admiring. I was
his Kuwait correspondent for the weekly Goencho
Mog and learnt a lot from him.
Though I was deeply hurt when NGP
failed us yet I am grateful to him.
May his soul rest in peace and may God give courage to his children to
bear this great loss.
A.Veronica Fernandes.
