dilip borkar is at peace with himself at his government quarters in the city all alone he stares blankly at the laptop screen where another of his masterpiece in konkani has just taken shape for someone who has immersed himself in social causes for more than three decades such ease is unusual perhaps at 59 he has mellowed down with age perhaps its the literary surrounding where he has plenty of books for company perhaps he is just a changed man unaffected by all the brouhaha including the recent demands to stop grants for english medium primary schools what madness we used to do those days the 50 bus fare concession for student community was our first real agitation said borkar recalling those agitationist days when he among other things stoned buses he also sat on indefinite hunger strikes at azad maidan fought for konkani launched a movement to protect goas identity actively participated in the fishermens movement and fought against the medical seat reservation policy of the state government not everything that borkar and his group touched turned gold but the belief in the movement was unwavering we could do anything for a cause we believed in all the agitations we launched said borkar born and brought up in agasaim anything includes bringing the city to a standstill and once setting a bus on fire those were the days borkar recalls they had enough fire in their belly to bring the most influential to their knees i remember that bustorching incident well i had two at the back of the bike with a tyre cotton petrol and of course a match box to set it on fire we have done some awfully dangerous stuff he said those two riding pillion included a young aires rodrigues now the scourge of the current bjp government and christopher fonseca who continues to fight for the rights of his comrades borkar though is an activist by compulsion and writer by choice actually i was very good in arts he says taking us back to his school days at dayanand arya high school in neura one of the only four marathi medium school in the sixties borkars passion for art needed a medium so while still in class 8 he penned his first poem mhozo ganv my village prompting his school teachers to inquire if he was related to bakibab borkar the legendary poetic genius from goa this borkar a literary giant now had no relation to bakibab but his work is no less revered he has after all written 45 books won the prestigious sahitya academy award in 1995 and also the kala academy award for his travelogue gomachal te himachal more recently he won the state award for literature among a dozenodd honours he has been bestowed with since being handpicked for the best script of the year award by the kala academy for its drama competition in 1982 i have dedicated 35 years of my life to