1st woman to win Akademi prize for Konkani dies

Margao: Renowned Konkani litterateur, Meena Suresh Kakodkar, who captured the imagination of readers across generations with her soulful short stories, passed away on Friday following a brief illness. She was 80.

She was the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi award for a Konkani work — her collection of short stories “Sapanfulam” made the cut in 1991. Kakodkar also won the Sahitya Akademi’s prize for translation in 2016 for bringing into Konkani Amitav Ghosh’s Akademi-feted novel ‘The Shadow Lines’.

Born into the Gaitonde family in Palolem, Canacona, on Sept 21, 1944, she graduated in science from Wilson College, Mumbai, and later worked in the accounts department of Goa govt before retiring as its joint director. After retirement, she divided her time between managing her home in Margao, overseeing the affairs of the Goa Animal Welfare Trust, and writing.

Kakodkar has to her credit three collections of short stories, one collection of essays, two novels, a book of moral stories for children, and a collection of children's plays, among others.

She is credited with lending a new dimension to the art of short story writing that established her as one of the leading writers in Konkani.

Kakodkar believed that as a writer, one needs to get into the skin of their character if they want to do justice to their work. “My first parkaya pravesh (a spiritual term for when a soul enters into another’s body) occurred during my school days when I wrote an essay,” Kakodkar once told TOI. “I literally felt the trauma and sufferings of the caged parrot who yearned for the wind beneath its wings, and I brought it out in the essay.”

The serene coastal village in South Goa where she grew up had a profound influence on her literary works. In Kakodkar’s words, the village unfolded before her various moods and the faces of Mother Nature, which slowly seeped into her psyche and embedded themselves in her stories.

Kakodkar has spoken about the time their pet dog contracted rabies and had to be put down. The tragedy remained imprinted in her memories all through her life. However, she said losing her dog taught her what she considered life’s most important lesson — to let go when the time comes.

Her mortal remains were consigned to flames at the Hindu crematorium, Margao. on Friday. She is survived by her husband, Suresh, and sons, Mangurish and Yogesh.


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