Shenoi Goembab

Born in an indigent family at Bicholim which lacked basic educational facilities, he studied upto the matriculation through the help of a well-to-do relative in Mumbai. Beyond this, he was a self-taught man. Centuries of foreign subjugation had drained the Konkani people of all sense of ethnic self-respect. Deliberate linguistic suppression during more than 300 years by the colonial power has do reduced the once vibrant Konkani language to a patois. The Konkani people, especially in Mumbai, were reluctant to use their mother tongue in public for fear of being ridiculed. It was at such a juncture that Shenoi Goembab undertook the onerous task of infusing pride and self-respect in the Konkani populace and of raising their mother tongue to the level of a literary language. He researched into not only the glorious history of the Konkani people but also the phonetics and grammatical structure of their language. In addition, he wrote Konkani books covering such genres as poetry, drama, biography, fiction and even a translation of the Bhagwad Geeta. He thus laid the foundation of Modern Konkani literature and earned the sobriquet “Father of Konkani Renaissance”.