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.