Kavita Trust has announced its Mathias Family Poetry Award – 2022 to Indu Ashok Gersappe residing at Bengaluru. This prestigious award consisting of Rs 25000 cash, memento and citation will be conferred on her on 8th January 2023 at Bela, Kasargod on the occasion of 17th edition of the Kavita Fest.
Indu was born in a Chithrapur Saraswath family in the month of June in 1941. Her grandfather is from Karkala. He traded in oil, rice and ice creams about 100 years ago at Goa. Her father was born in Goa and mother from Mangaluru. Though Indu was born in Mangaluru, her mother passed away when she was just 2 years old and Indu was shifted to Madgaon in Goa. Later she completed her education at Panchagani and in Mumbai. She did her BA (Honors) in English as well as in Economics from Elphinstone College Mumbai. Stayed in Bengal for few years after marriage, she served as a teacher for 20 years at Mumbai and currently a resident of Bengaluru along with her husband.
Indu has written poems in Konkani as well as in English. Her stories and other articles have appeared in well-known magazines like Femina, Eve’s Weekly, and Illustrated Weekly. She has written ballets in Hindi for dance performances. After long struggle, she with the support of Adi Marzban succeeded in getting Konkani Programs telecasted in Mumbai Doordarshan Channel. Her troupe has presented Manddo and Dhalo in TV channel.
Bimb Puplications of Goa has published her anthology of poems ‘Sankalp’ which bagged the Goa Konkani Academy Award. Her poems are published in Bimb, Jaag, Rithu and other magazines. She has written for Children too.
Her 3 books of poems are on way of publishing. She says she is doing the cleansing of the soul through her poetry.
Mathias Family Poetry Award is instituted by Joseph Mathias, managing director of Merit Freight Systems Dubai in the name of his family at Kuppepadavu. This award has been bestowed upon to 14 prominent Konkani poets from Karnataka, Goa, Kerala and Maharashtra in the past 14 years and Indu Gersappe will be the 15th recipient.
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