Mangaluru: Founder and Co-Chair Emeritus from Konkani Bhas Ani Sanskriti Prathistan, World Konkani Center, Basti Vaman Shenoy, died on Sunday, because of a disease related to age.
He is 86.
The mortal remnants will be stored for the public to pay their respect in the World Konkani Center, Shakti Nagar, from 9am to 10 am on Monday.
He will be cremated on Bantwal after that.
He survived by two sons, a princess and grandchild.
He has a large family of followers and good sympathizers, and thousands of scholars have become beneficiaries of the Vishwa Konkani student scholarship program.
Know as Vishwa Konkani Sardar (Konkani World Leader), he was born on November 6, 1934 on Bantwal, 25 km from here.
Even though he wanted to pursue higher education and became a teacher, after completing the matriculation in 1952 from SVS High School, he had to join his father to help in his business, because of the financial difficulties faced by the family.
For a short period, he also worked at Canara Bank.
After his father’s death in 1957, the responsibility of caring for the whole family, fell on his shoulder.
Shenoy is respected as a doyen of the Konkani language movement.
He founded the World Konkani Center in 2009 at Shakti Nagar, under the auspices of Konkani Bhas Ani Sanskriti Prathistan.
He served as President Prathistan from the beginning of 1996 to 2021, and served as co-chairman emeritus afterwards.
During his extraordinary term, he played an important role in uniting Konkani people spread across various castees, religions and regions, in maternal language services.
Under his leadership, World Konkani Center pioneered several programs for the preservation of KONKANI language and culture, and the welfare of the Konkani Community who speaks Konkani.
His career as an activist of Konkani language has been extraordinary.
After his retirement from the Syndicate Bank in 1992, as president of Konkani Bhasha Mandal Karnataka, he organized the Konkani World Convention in 1995, brings together all the factions of communicial communities throughout the world.
He was given the title ‘Vishwa Konkan Sardar’ for this extraordinary achievement of currencies circulating in India.