Radhali Padyavali

Publisher Marketing: This is a collection of poems many of which are in Konkani language written using the Kannada script. There are a few poems in other Indian languages too but they are written in Kannada script. These poems were written down by Radha who spoke Konkani at home. Radha was born in 1916 and died in 1991. She lived in the town of Kakinada in her childhood and in Mangalore after her marriage with Gopalakrishna. She wrote her poems in an exercise book and gave the book to her son Mohan, with the hope that the book would be properly handled by him. Mohan rewrote the poems and compiled this book for publication. The poems are Bhajans and other songs, the ones Radha and other GSB women sang during festivals and family events. All of them were composed by poets and other writers over the centuries and published in various books and magazines but Radha wrote them down from memory or from her collection of old books and papers. Bhajans or devotional songs that Radha had written have been in circulation among the GSB community. The poems in this book are old and many of them are out of circulation and therefore this book can be regarded as a document of past GSB culture. This book would be of immense interest to all women who can read Kannada and those who know Konkani.