By Gauree Malkarnekar

Celebrated lyricist Gulzar, on a visit to Goa in December 2009, said of Goan poet Manoharrai Sardessai’s literary work, “It is the saltiness of the winds that blow in Goa that give his poems flavor and the swaying palms that give his words the rhythm.”

Gulzar, in one line, described the same vivid imagery from Goa that dominated Sardessai’s poems, while also demonstrating how this Goan’s words stirred a strong longing for one’s home, irrespective of the reader’s origins.

Sardessai was born on January 18 1925, a date that happens to fall just two days after Goa celebrates ‘Goem Asmitai Dis’. It is on January 16, 1967, that Goa voted against its merger with Maharashtra, a verdict in which Sardessai’s poems played a critical role. Read more

Source: The Times of India