From India’s Independence, Goa’s Liberation, Opinion Poll and the Konkani Agitation, Padma Bhushan Ravindra Kelekar participated in every cause for Goa and the Goan identity that shines through Konkani. He was the first Goan to be awarded Konkani’s first Jnanpith Award and spoke his mind even when receiving the award in 2010, a few weeks before his passing. He famously said, “You will be uprooted in your country, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere. English has certain limitations. It networks you with the world but distances from your own people.”
Born on March 25, 1925 in Cuncolim, he did his schooling in Panjim. He moved across various cities of India which broadened his views and yet kept him rooted to Konkani. Did you know that he was also a reporter for OHeraldo and reported from Bombay for the then Portuguese edition of the paper while fighting for Goa’s Liberation? There is a lot more to the freedom fighter and writer and these different facets are coming to the fore through a new documentary on his life, ‘Jeevan Yogi Ravindra Kelekar.’
The documentary is written, produced and directed by Dilip Borkar, camera, editing and narration by Sainath Parab, music by Mukesh Ghatwal, sound recording by Sankalp Parab, art direction by Mansi Dhauskar, subtitles by Umesh Manohar Rai Sardessai and stills by Ravi Monkar. Many stalwarts shared their views on the pioneer in the modern Konkani movement including Adv Uday Bhembre, Damodar Mauzo, Girish Kelekar, Madhav Borkar, Mahabaleshwar Sail and Gulzar.
Dilip Borkar was very close to Ravindra Kelekar. He recorded the writer on his video camera whenever he was at his home in Priol. “I was with Ravindra Kelekar for his last 40 years and I was having my own camera. I was very close to him and many great people used to come to visit him, like Gulzar, Mangesh Padgaonkar and I was just taking that opportunity and recording him. I collected some recording of this footage and kept it with me. I was planning about this documentary for the last three years, to celebrate his birth centenary. It was my plan to submit the film for the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Sainath is a good editor and helped me with the film. I hope the film is selected in the Indian Panorama non-fiction section of the festival,” says Dilip.
What inspired Dilip to work on this documentary was the need for the young generation to know about the people who fought the fight for Konkani. “Unlike Adv Uday Bhembre who worked with Ravindra Kelekar for various movements, I was very young at the time of the Opinion Poll. During the Konkani language issue, we were together and Ravindra Kelekar, is not a small personality. He fought for freedom. And I especially want students and youth to know and motivate them to save our Goa. If we see the situation of present Goa, it is not our dream of our people. Now it's messed up. We have to motivate the people, youth now and I think that through source of filmmaking we can reach out to the youth and tell them about Ravindra Kelekar, his literature and philosophy,” explains Dilip.
The one hour long documentary has old footage of Ravindra Kelekar as well as many voices that were shot recently. His son, Arch Giresh Kelekar speaks about their personal and family life. Adv Uday Bhembre speaks about his work during Opinion Poll and the recognition by Sahitya Academy.
“It's a very interesting story, young people will definitely get inspired from it. We have already submitted for IFFI but the main target are schools and colleges. We want to take it to the young generation. He was known popularising for his diary writing style called ‘Dispati’, which is writing complicated thoughts or ideas, in a very simple language. That's how he bought some very good literature in Konkani. Although he was a very staunch Konkani supporter, but he wrote in Marathi, Hindi and Portuguese. He was a genius. Every Goan should read his books,” says Sainath, who has been reading about the writer as research for the documentary.
“During India's freedom struggle, he was working as a reporter for OHeraldo from Bombay. He was writing in Portuguese and sending his reports to Goa. He took this job of a reporter so that he could go closer to all these big leaders, Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru, so that he can put forward Goa's problems and he did that. He was very direct and straight, like a very true reporter, a journalist. He also started a Romi magazine in Bombay, ‘Gomant Bharati’ as there were lots of Christian people who were working in Bombay and living in clubs and he wanted to create an awareness among them about Goa’s Liberation,” adds Sainath.
At the age of 22, he started a Devnagari Konkani magazine called ‘Mirga’ from Wardha, Gujarat. “He was very much influenced with Gandhian philosophy and inspired with Ram Manohar Lohia's entry in Goa. He was also very actively involved in TB Cunha's agitation when he was arrested. Even later, after Goa’s freedom, there is a lot of work he had done for Konkani. When there was a function in Delhi which was attended by Rajiv Gandhi, he had the opportunity to present Goa’s problem in front of him in just two minutes including the language and statehood issue. He did just that,” says Sainath.
Sainath had to work with very old footage. “It was in standard definition, now everything is 4K and this must be 15-20 years old footage. The quality was very poor, so I managed to convert it in a higher format and re-edited. I have applied the style of narration and interview,” he says.
Ravindra Kelekar was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2007, followed by the Padma Bhushan in 2008 and India’s highest literary honour, Jnanpith Award.
Dolcy D’Cruz
dolcy@herald-goa.com