Borges-bab, "picture speaks thousand words!"

By Ancy Paladka

10 April 2010: I witnessed the recent 2nd Konkani (Romi Lipi) Sahitya Sammenalan. Though it is in its infancy stage (just second year) I was thrilled see the enthusiasm in people who attended the Sammelan. Morever it was a very pleasant surprise for me to see, so many collections of Konkani books in Roman Script. I enquired about the books with the person who was managing the stall and was very delighted to learn that most of those books were published in just one year.

Number of people discouraged Konkani (Roman script) because of the dirty lobbying in Goa who wanted just to grab Govt money for their selfish purpose. Thus the interest in Konkani (Roman script) was diminishing. But because of the lift from DKA I am very happy to see the trend in Konkani (Roman script) flourishing. This is indeed a good sign.

As Tomazhino rightly said "Only Konkani language in all script and not in a particular script, can save Goan culture and Goan identity". Taking a step further I would add to Tomazhino’s saying by adding few words "Konkani will survive only if the efforts are made to preserve all its diversities including its script and its culture in the entire Konkani world." Just as it is important to preserve all diversities in India for the unity of our country, it is also necessary to preserve all the diversities of Konkani of all Konkani regions.

To support the message of Prof Jose Salvadore Fernandes I have also attached a picture clicked from my camera about the book stall. I also liked the working of those people because they informed me that they asked authors to send them the books and they will be paying the authors after selling the books. If this method is followed by other organisations then it will benefit many authors.