PANAJI
The prestigious Gulab Awards 2021 were presented on Wednesday at a special function at Ravindra Bhavan Conference Hall, Margao.
The event, organised by Gulab in collaboration with Konkani Bhasha Mandal, Felicio Cardoso-che Pattlavdar and Fr Freddy J Da Costa Memorial Trust was to commemorate the 69th birth anniversary of Gulab’s founder late Fr Freddy J da Costa.
Gulab Awards 2020, which were held back due to Covid restrictions, as well as Felicio Cardoso’s Journalism Awards 2020 and 2021, were presented to the winners at the function.
The recipients of the 2021 Gulab Awards are Dr Jayanti Naik who received Gulab’s Personality of the Year, Fr Eusebio Gomes SFX received Gulab’s Writer of the Year award and Anthony San was announced as Gulab’s Tiatrist of the Year. 2020 Gulab Awards were given to Dr Carlos Fernandes, former curator of Central Library (Gulab’s Personality of the Year), Fr Manuel Gomes SFX (Gulab’s Writer of the Year) and Wilson Mazarello was announced Gulab’s Tiatrist of the year. The winners of the 2021 and 2020 Felicio Cardoso’s Journalist of the Year were Fr Kyriel De Souza SFX and editor of Prudent Media Pramod Acharya, respectively.
Guest of honour, veteran journalist Sandesh Prabhudesai recalled his days with Felicio Cardoso and Fr Freddy whom he revered as Gurus.
“Feliciobab taught how journalism should be – courageous, factual, to the point, clear and full of research,” said Prabhudesai.
He also lauded one of the awardees, Carlos Fernandes, former curator of Central Library for his contribution to the library. Pointing out that the reading habit is decreasing, Prabhudesai mentioned social media platforms like WhatsApp which are spreading false news around.
“In today’s scenario, it is difficult to run a magazine like Gulab, as people have stopped reading. The world is getting conservative instead of progressive and even India is changing. Hatred is ruling all, but Goa has maintained its identity. Konkani does not have a word for ‘hate’ as we Goenkars do not hate anyone. But we are losing our unity and unique identity, which we must preserve,” stated Prabhudesai.
Former Speaker of Goa Legislative Assembly and Konkani activist Tomazinho Cardozo also addressed the audience. Highlighting that Romi Konkani along with Devanagari Konkani should be taught in schools, Tomazinho stated that if any language must be kept alive, it is through the process of teaching it to the GenNext.
Stating that magazines like Gulab which had 35,000 readers two decades ago, now have very few buyers, Tomazinho said, “People are giving priority to English, instead of their mother tongue. The Official Language Act says Devanagari Konkani is the official script, but we must see that both the scripts get equal importance in schools. The number of writers in Romi script are few because it is not taught in schools.”
Johny B Good and his team that entertained the audience with Fr Freddy’s memorable compositions were given mementoes along with members of Konkani Bhasha Mandal and others. Sonia Gomes and Brijesh Desai compèred the event. Anthony Menezes proposed the vote of thanks.
