Warrior With A Walking Stick: Remembering Basti Vaman Shenoy, Who Drove The Chariot Of Konkani In Karnataka

Konkani mourns the demise of one of the tallest champions of her cause as Basti Vaman Shenoy breathed his last yesterday.

But for anyone who has been associated with the language, its struggle for recognition in a state that gave it refuge when its speakers fled Goa during the Portuguese inquisition and later, ‘Basti Vaman maam’ can never cease to exist.

For such is the legacy he leaves behind.

Almost six decades of striving for Konkani, his life is a lesson in pursuit of inclusive growth for reviving and sustaining the cultural and linguistic heritage of a diasporic populace.

It felt a little discomforting to watch him lay still at the Vishwa Konkani Kendra (World Konkani Centre) as the large portrait of him in his characteristic gait — kurta clad bespectacled smiling Basti maam with a shawl over his left shoulder and the walking stick in his right hand — overlooked him next to the painting of this mammoth institution he envisioned and steered turn to reality.

And those who turned up to pay their respects were a microscopic sample of what the man had been able to accomplish over the last six decades. While many an achiever is lauded for ‘single handedly’ achieving whatever they did, Basti Vaman Shenoy didn't claim to nor ever did so, and that was what distinctly set him apart.

He ensured as many hands as possible could join to achieve the dream of earning Konkani its respect and recognition — across caste, religion, class, sects, generations, political ideologies and variants.

As we sat watching the grand old man rest peacefully under the roof of this massive institution, cardiologist and Konkani activist who strived to have the language introduced in schools Dr Mohan Pai, recalls Basti maam’s role in the struggle to make it happen.

“What was lacking in Konkani was that there was no learning — it was not an academic language. Even after having lived here for over four centuries, it was a distant dream. Even after the government gave its nod, there were no teachers — which is when we decided to take it upon ourselves and to this day, the teachers in 14 schools across the state, are paid an honorarium from the Vishwa Konkani Kendra to teach Konkani as a mother tongue. He enabled this,” says Dr Pai.

Vishwa Konkani Kendra has grown leaps and bounds, enabling the pursuit of not just Konkani but all other streams of excellence by incentivising and supporting Konkani speakers across the state to document their varieties, and students to engage in their mother tongue, sponsoring and providing scholarships to Konkani speaking undergraduates who wish to pursue professional courses like Engineering and Medical studies, offering skill training to young minds and initiating a tradition of giving back to the linguistic society and much more.

Under the overarching umbrella of the centre that this grand old man envisioned and announced at the World Konkani Convention back in 1995, many dreams have been nurtured and turned into reality.

And this was a man, who himself hadn't been able to pursue higher education beyond matriculation, came from a very humble family, was the son of a bus agent — a job he later took up before he joined Syndicate Bank as a clerk, had no big family name to boast of, yet went on to earn the love of all communities in the region for his service to his language.

And that is why, he says, he chose to title his autobiography ‘Ek Bhikshuk Chakravarthile Kani’ — the tale of a mendicant emperor. For as he writes concluding the author’s note, he says his tale is similar to that of the legendary leader Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya who had to seek the support of rulers when he set up the Banaras Hindu University, and said ‘I am beggar among kings and king among beggars’.

From conducting plays to publishing books, from digitising rare manuscripts to publishing linguistic research, from building this large repository of all work on Konkani and a hostel for scholars who wish to stay at the centre, consolidating thoughts and people who have been working for Konkani through various organisations, what Basti maam achieved was reflected as he was given the title of ‘Vishwa Konkani Sardar’.

Until 2021 from 1996 when he founded the Konkani Bhas Ani Sanskriti Pratishthan, Vaman maam was the President, and only recently did he hand over the reigns to be the Co-Chairman Emeritus.

But for those of us, whose heart beats for our ‘maai bhaas’ (mother tongue) Basti maam will always be the ‘warrior with a walking stick’.