By Vivek Ullal
It could be the love of dali thoy, alsanda upukari and batata song. It may be the yearning to hear the spiciest hoon khabbar, laced with phrases such as aikalen we? gammati aika, Gadibadi zalanle aikonchasa we? Or may be it is the legendary Konkani hospitality. Wherever two or more Konkanis live in proximity, they love to meet each other. The bonding is automatic.
In the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s, there were just enough Konkani families in Southern California to be comfortably entertained in a living room of one of the families. As the numbers grew, we would meet once a year for a picnic. We were not yet an organized association. At a picnic in 1992, we decided to form an association. Sridhar Rao was the first President, Mohini Kamath, the first Vice-President, and Jaidev Chandavarkar, the first editor. In 1997, by the hard work of Sridhar Rao, we became officially a non-profit organization for taxation purposes. The same year, after 5 years in office, the original committee stepped down and was replaced by a new committee headed by Vasant Keny and Suman Rao. We have had a few more committees and new faces since then.
K.A.S.C organizes four events every year: The Yugadi (including elections for new committee), The Summer Picnic, Diwali, and Shivaratri Bhajan. We encourage members to display their talents, and we have had no shortage of this commodity. We have hosted several Konkani skits, music, dance, etc. We also have our own publication, Newsletter. This is mailed to members four times a year, approximately 2 –3 weeks prior to every event. Since this year, courtesy of Prasad and Deepa Upasani, we have our own web page. We encourage more members to access this web page and keep themselves updated. At present, K.A.S.C has about 116 member families. We hope to add many more in the near future.