Konkani writer Vincy Quadros, has won the Sahitya Akademis Bal Sahitya Puraskar for his book on Jaduche Petul. NT BUZZ speaks to the writer about his journey into the literary world

Janice Savina Rodrigues|NT BUZZ

Writers and artists are a breed of the human race that has the privilege of attaining a sense of immortality through their work. Aiming to achieve such an end is Vincy Quardos. A Konkani writer, Vincy has had a long affiliation with writing, spanning over decades. He began writing at an age when other children would rather have been frolicking around in playgrounds, even before he could enter his teens. I began my writing career at the age of 12, when I wrote a tiatr called Chintunk Naslem, says the proud winner of this years Sahitya Akademis Bal Sahitya Puraskar.

Having won the award for his childrens fantasy book Jaduche Petul, Vincys tryst with writing continued unabated through his teens. As a young teenager, I started writing for magazines, and All India Radios programme under Prasar Bharatis youth-centric radio station, Yuvavani. I wrote stories, essays, skits and poetry for the programmes. Additionally at that time Novem Goem was a weekly then came other Konkani magazines, now I write for Jivit, Gulab and Dor Mhoineachi Rotti, says Vincy.

Vincy is also occupied in his day job which he says he balances with his writing career while burning the midnight oil. I handle the accounts for the Pepsi plant in Goa, and to balance it out I write only post work hours sometimes going into the wee hours of the morning about one or two a.m., he adds.

The childrens fantasy book Jaduche Petul was initially released in 2011 and this has been the fourth year that the book was nominated to the final round of the awards. I am very excited and feel honoured to win the award, it was a very emotional moment when I got to know that I had won national recognition for my work, he says.

The book is a story about a boy who is very poor but has a twist of fate. His life is changed when while on his walks about town and the woods he finds a treasure box, which happens to have a fairy inside it. She grants him a wish and turns him into a king, thereafter he finds a kingdom where there was no heir to take over after the king had died. He rules that kingdom with high morals. Even though he is young he knows how to rule over his subjects, and how to maintain the relationships with the neighbouring kingdoms, what should be the extent of fighting and how to keep aside your selfishness and be cordial towards the other people. He is just a child and yet he displays the maturity of an adult and wise man. This boy comes across another person who turns out to be a writer who then puts all the thoughts and morals of the king into writing as a book and the name of that book is Jaduche Petul. The story is further supported by pictorial representations of each situation, Vincy says.

Childrens literature is picking up across the globe, and Goa is not far behind. Ask Vincy how he perceives the scene for childrens writing, he replies very positively. In Goa, childrens writing is picking up now with the institutions like Konkani Bhasha Mandal and others doing very good work in the area. They have brought to the market a series of books, with coloured pictures and my intention is also to go along with their thinking and get children further interested in books, he says.

Vincy also stresses that just reading is not enough and that children should also learn what goes behind making of the books. When I was the vice president of the Goa Konkani Academi, I had started a Bal Sahitya Sammellan a conference for school children where they would be thought about books and their making. The conference was getting good response, but it was discontinued. Now with the help of like-minded institutions I want to revive it, he says.

About the keeping alive of the Konkani language, Vincy is of the opinion that the more people write, the better it is for the language. A person will die but his writing wont. Take the example of Shakespeare, he lived 500 years back but he continues to live through his poetry and plays. A language is kept alive by writing and a man is kept alive by his writing. Immortality through work is a writers forte, says Vincy.

Ask him how awards benefit a language, he responds: Simplicity is one of the qualities of being a human, the person who takes note and respects another persons efforts becomes a better human being. To have the knowledge of works in literature and to serve literature in all simplicity will be followed by awards and recognitions.

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Achieving immortality through literature - The Navhind Times