Prof. Olivinho J F Gomes

Olivinho Gomes was an eminent Konkani scholar and former acting vice-chancellor of the Goa University. His Konkani writings resulted in him being included in the executive board of the Indian institution of letters the Sahitya Akademi as a representative for the Konkani language, a member of the experts panel of the University Grants Commission, the National Council of Educational Research and Training, the Union Public Service Commission, the K K Birla Foundation, and the Indian Languages Promotion Council, among others. Professor Gomes had a fascination from his student days with the verse of the Portuguese national poet Luís de Camões. He spent five years of his spare time to translate the epic poet's work into one of India's smallest national languages, but his mother-tongue, Konkani. On the lines of the classical Sanskrit epic of India, the Ramayana, Gomes has called his 747-page translation work Luzitayonn. Gomes has argued that there is a "preponderance of probability" that Camoes wrote the epic or a substantial part of it in Goa, "where he wrote most of his poetry". Gomes, who was born Portuguese, did his PhD in Sociology, got into the Indian Customs and Central Excise higher echelons through the Indian Revenue Service, and then gave up that all to shift back to Goa in 1987 for a life as a scholar.