a titan of the konkani movement kelekar was a gandhian activist and a freedom fighter and one of the main architects who propogated konkani to ensure its prominence as a major language of indiadeath can take away a mans body not his works so what if a man goes as long as his works remain let him gorabindranath tagore said howsoever mighty you may be can you claim to be more powerful than deathbut we writers can say thus we are greater than death and thats all i need to say before i leaveindeed the doyen of konkani literature triumphed over death for long after he has left his mortal coil his footprints continue to guide and mentor all those who wish to follow his path kelekar breathed his last on august 27 2010a recipient of many prestigious awards including the padma bhushan and the sahitya akademi award kelekar scaled the pinnacle of glory when he won the 42nd jnanpith award in 2006 the firstever awarded to an author writing in konkani presented in july 2010 very early in life kelekar had realized that his mother tongue konkani would get a raw deal if goa remained under portuguese imperialism and therefore plunged into goas freedom struggle while still in high school young ravindras nationalistic spirit thrived under the tutelage of his father dr rajaram kelekar a physician of repute who was renowned for his translation of the bhagwad gita into portuguesekelekars contemporaries say it was in the company of ram manohar lohia that kelekar was able to see for himself the potential of vernacular tongue in stirring the passive populace into action he then saw the potential of the konkani language and made it his lifes mission to propogate itgandhian philosophy had a great influence on kelekars life in 1949 he left goa for wardha to be with noted gandhian and writer kakasaheb kalelkar who remained his mentor until 1955 when kelekar was appointed librarian of the gandhi memorial museum in new delhi however he soon returned to goa and plunged into the liberation movement once againpost liberation kelekar led from the front the antimerger campaign of the newlyformed state with maharashtrait may seem an exaggeration in present times to compare ravindrabab with a rishi sage but the path which ravindrabab consciously adopted bears not even the scent of falsehood if he wanted to go with falsehood he could have accepted the path of the pleasurable the likeable but he adopted the creditable the desirable the worthwhile and all his life remained true to that path he always held on to the side of truth and that truth always triumphed wrote dilip borkar in his book shreyarthee a biographical commentary on kelekar translated by kiran budkuley kelekar had a profound and insightful view on all subjects that matter a cursory reading of his collection of essays gives an insight into his deeply philosophical outlookin his essay on politics kelekar dwells at length on two types of political streams of thought