Thirst for knowledge
There
is no limit to learning online; the Internet is full of information—all one
needs is a thirst for knowledge
He
hasn’t been to high school, yet he’s been a research guide for several Ph.D.
scholars over the years. He is a grandfather but his agility is remarkable. He
has been a calligrapher, historian, photographer, author, traveller, tourist
guide and weaver; and now he’s also a digital salesman, social media
practitioner and website manager.
I
remember my first meeting with Muzaffar Ansari aka Kalle Bhai. It was in 2009
when I had gone to Chanderi in Madhya Pradesh to see what digital interventions
could be introduced for weavers of the town. The first person that I met in
Chanderi was Kalle Bhai, who had come to receive me at Lalitpur railway station
(the closest to the town). I remember being surprised by how well-versed he was
in Urdu. Kalle Bhai turned out to be a great motivator for us to understand the
culture, tradition, people and problems of Chanderi and that eventually led us
to start a project called Chanderiyaan in the town.
Besides
narrating folklore, Kalle Bhai also spoke to us about problems of Chanderi, and
one of them was the lack of a railway station. This remains a problem even
today. With no railway station, Chanderi rarely figures on the itinerary of
tourists.
People
who travel to Madhya Pradesh visit Khajuraho, Jhansi, Ujjain, Gwalior and other
places but hardly ever head to Chanderi, even though there are about 350
monuments in a 5km radius of the town.
At
home, Kalle Bhai has a rich collection of historic and ancient stones, coins,
papers and utensils of various eras. And he can identify each one of the coins,
and tell you to which period they belong. In Chanderi, he can take you to
historic places not known to many and he has filed several papers on the
unknown history of Chanderi and various possible excavation sites. He’s like a
walking-talking encyclopedia on Chanderi.
To
help him get published again, we took along two interns from the manuscript
division of the National Museum, New Delhi, which hosts a post graduate program
under Delhi University, to Chanderi for a month. Every morning, Kalle Bhai and
the interns would set off on his motorcycle and travel around the town,
photographing its many monuments. In the evening, they would return and Kalle
Bhai would dictate the history of each of the places they visited during the
day. The result of this month-long exercise was a 200-page coffee table book
called Chanderi: History, Heritage, Culture.
Over
time, Kalle Bhai and I have become good friends. When we started our project in
Chanderi, he taught us history and we taught him technology; it was an unstated
pact between us. Gradually, he has learnt to operate a computer and camera on
his own. Today, he looks after the website for Chanderiyaan, photographs the
monuments for his books, takes orders for weavers on WhatsApp, manages social
media pages and even doubles up as a tourist guide for visitors. He can
speak Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, English and a little French and can write in
Gujarati, Bengali, Brahmi and Kharosthi. All this, despite having studied only
till Class VI.
Kalle
Bhai comes from a family that wasn’t well off. When he was promoted from Class
VI to Class VII, his father couldn’t immediately afford to buy new books for
him and eventually Kalle Bhai had to drop out. However, dropping out of school
did not mean he stopped pursuing his passion for history.
It
is this thirst for knowledge that has encouraged him to build a brand for
Chanderi tourism, learn how to set up a wireless network, manage an e-commerce
portal, handle social media platforms and even design/weave with the local
weavers.
This
is the kind of learning spirit that we encourage among all our beneficiaries.
We work in more than 170 villages of India and, as expected, almost every
village speaks a different language or dialect. Forget the knowledge of
English, many of these villagers don’t even understand Hindi. Some have
completed school and earned a bachelor’s degree; others have dropped out of
school. Many others haven’t been to school at all. Unfortunately, their
traditional knowledge or self-taught lessons don’t count in our modern
education system.
Yet,
lack of modern education or not understanding English has never come in the way
of these people learning how to use a computer. Be it a 10-year-old girl or a
60-year-old man, they take to computers as humans take to swimming and cycling.
The
time they take to learn how to manoeuvre the mouse or navigate a computer
screen might be different, but once they learn they never forget. And there is
no limit to learning online. The Internet is full of information; all one needs
is a thirst for knowledge. All you need is a Kalle Bhai in the mix.
Osama
Manzar is founder-director of Digital Empowerment Foundation and chair of
Manthan and mBillionth awards. He is member, advisory board, at Alliance for
Affordable Internet and has co-authored NetCh@kra–15 Years of Internet in India and
Internet Economy of India.
Source
| Mint – The Wall Street Journal | 4 January 2017
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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