2. The Barber Boy and a Billion Children: the Story of an Evolving Dream

Episode - 2:  The Barber Boy Returns
(For continuity, please refer to the previous episodes)

The next Sunday the barber boy returns  with the sheet.

I ask him if he could make out any thing.

He nods in the affirmative. I feel surprised. I take a quick test. Yes, he has learnt all the phonetic symbols by heart with heir nearest Hindi equivalent sounds. No mistakes, except in pronouncing  two-and-a-half sounds the likes of which are not found in Hindi! And he can scribble all the consonant, vowel and diphthong symbols in no time!

I feel astounded, happy and curious. What no child  studying in a good English medium school was found by me to have done so far (I have been teaching phonetics for quite some time off and on), this poor, semi-educated, slum child studying in a very ordinary Hindi medium school had done!

How?

Madhu Mangal 

Madhu Mangal does not know that he has done anything remarkable. So far I have been told by my professor friends teaching English in universities that even the  students of English literature are not able to master the phonetic script fully. And here is an ordinary looking school boy  who has done it so easily! I have always known that these poor children had a drive to rise high and get everything in life that all other well-to-do people had, but they did not have good teachers to guide them and show them the way, and not enough resources to help them realize their dreams.

While working on intelligence quotient for my module on total education, I had come across a British study that surveyed a number of children from the rich and poor classes and found that the IQ of the poorer children was less than that of those having rich parents. One possible reason could be inadequate exposure. Another could be suppression of mental faculties by hunger and poverty. A third could be poor nutrition.  I had to find our if this was true of India too. Madhu Mangal's case appeared to suggest evidence to the contrary. But even if true in general, I had to find out if a higher emotional quotient and inspiration could easily off set the disadvantages of a lesser IQ. If yes, to what extent?

The idea clicks in my  mind - let me find if there are more underprivileged children like Madhu Mangal. I decide to undertake a larger empirical study by holding a learning camp for slum children who are not known to be academically bright. The idea starts acquiring a shape. Indian children find mathematics and English to be most difficult subjects. Could I begin my experiment by teaching English to a group of underprivileged children, and see if they cold do well ? No, not only English, because that would not take care of the future of these children in a larger sense on whom I was now planning to spend  my precious time for a month. I must develop a module for holistic education - total education - encompassing the various different aspects of life while devoting half of the time to English language teaching. I must develop a module and a model that is replicable and scalable - that can be administered to any number of children, in any place - perhaps any country. So a decision in principle is taken. What remains to be done is to put things in place for the first experimental learning camp of underprivileged children so that the idea can be kick-started.

Shaping the future of children means shaping the future of humanity itself. In India and other underdeveloped and developing countries, children constitute the largest number and, among children, underprivileged children having no access to schools or no access to good schools are the largest chunk.

(Please wait for Episode 3. I will write the different episodes of the story one by one.)

1. The Barber Boy and a Billion Children: the Story of an Evolving Dream

Episode - 1: How a Barber Boy Ignited a Great Idea

A Sunday of 2007 in the small township of Ranchi in the state of Jharkhand, India.

It is the rainy season, which is especially bountiful in Ranchi with frequent drizzles and rains. The lush green surrounding of the HEC area adds luster to the Sunday moments that allow time to eye the green foliage which is hardly noticed on the work filled week days.

A 15 year old barber boy massages my head at my official residence in the sprawling backyard lawn, while I relax on this Sunday after a week's hectic and boring office schedule, rummaging through the Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary, trying to figure out what changes have been introduced in the phonetic symbols since I left college around two and a half decades back.

The barber  boy - Madhu Mangal - is curious to know what this strange phonetic alphabet is all about, so different from the usual English (Roman) alphabet! I explain to him that English is a strange language in which there is hardly any link between what you write and what you speak. You write PUT and speak, or pronounce, it as पुट. But when you write BUT you do not pronounce it as बुट. Instead, you pronounce it as बट. This is the reason the advanced English dictionaries give after every word the real pronunciation of every word using the phonetic alphabet. If one is really serious about learning spoken English, one has to learn the phonetic script in order to learn the real pronunciation of every English word from the dictionary.

Madhu Mangal picks up a sheet on which I had penned down the various phonetic symbols and their Hindi equivalent sounds. He takes the sheet away with my permission, promising to return the same the following Sunday. I explain to him that I am writing a book to facilitate learning of the phonetic symbols by Hindi knowing children so that they are able to speak better English, and hence he must not forget to return it. He goes away, and I forget about the episode, busy in completing my work on phonetics for Indian children, because I am sure this boy would not be able to make any use of the sheet material  without a proper initiation in phonetics. At least I had not found anybody till date who had been able to show that he could do this.

(Please wait for Episode 2. I will write the different episodes of the story one by one.)

A Pond Without A Penny

In many states of India  ponds are made on paper and all the money siphoned off by officials, contractors and local leaders. Jharkhand has acquired the reputation of being one such state. In such a state where millions of rupees are unable to produce a pond on the ground, a pond  was created by the poor villagers themselves without spending a penny, by just donating their time and labor.

Video footage of the initial phase of pond digging 

I will narrate the story. how! 
In 2002 I was posted in Tripura, and happened to be in Ranchi for a few days. A few people invited me to address select gatherings of advocates, traders, voluntary organisation, doctors etc. I accepted the invitation and addressed a few groups. In one such meetings, somebody stood up and invited me to come to a village which his newly founded voluntary organisation SAGE had taken up for development.He wanted me and Bharat Shodh, with which I was known to be associated, to help them  achieve their goal   I went there. The name of the village was Simalia. It fell under the Ratu block of Ranchi district. It was a poor village mainly  inhabited by tribal people. I interacted with the villagers there for a couple of hours, and spoke things that could easily render one unpopular. After affirming my personal and sincere faith in the existence of God, I spoke against the belief that  God or some deity will one day take pity on their poverty and make them prosperous; that there was something called destiny that had consigned them to this state etc. I told them that they could change their condition with their own efforts in a few months or years, and could be prosperous without any astrologers or deities helping them. I had invited some agricultural scientists there from the nearest agriculture university. I said that if there were any deities for the poor agriculturists  today it was these agricultural scientists, and that these scientists, through their guidance, could give them what no deity ever gave them. But finally it was the villagers themselves who would have to put in their efforts.

The scientists were quite disappointed to see the state of the village. They said that the village first needed water bodies and water harvesting structures for irrigation.

One of the villagers rose and requested me to 'adopt' the village like one adopted a baby.  In Hindi they said, "गोद ले लीजिए", which  does not only mean 'adopting' but actually means 'taking in your lap'. I said no body could adopt so may babies. From where could one get so many baby feeding bottles and so much of milk! I was, however, prepared to be their partner and friend! This relationship would not make them mute receivers like infants. I said that if they took one step, the local voluntary organisation SAGE and Bharat Shodh would take two. But it is they who would have to take the first step.

The villagers were uncertain about what they could do. They said they had nothing.They had no money, and most of them were daily wagers. The majority in the crowd were women. I reminded that they had the most important thing in the world with them: their hands! We the one billion people - even if we have nothing else - have two billion hands!  Two billion hands could reshape the world! A twinkle started appearing in their dusky eyes. I asked if they had 'kudaals' and 'khantees' (simple handy earth digging instruments) with them. 
"Yes,  there are plenty of them." 
I said that  was enough. "Your first step could be to dig up a pond, and then we would get a bigger pond dug up for you." 

They agreed to take the first step as a partner. But I told them that they should not talk to me till they had completed digging of the pond. And if they could not dig up, they and their local partner SAGE should forget about me and Bharat Shodh. I lovingly and politely told them that we had time only for people who were interested in shaping their future with their own hands.

I came back to Tripura and forgot about these people, engrossed in so many activities.

One day a rustic voice greeted me over phone very early in the morning and disturbed my sleep. "सर, हम सिमलिया से बोल रहे हैं. हमने तालाब खोद दिया है' अब आप आ कर देख लीजिए." "(Sir, I am speaking from Simalia. We have kept our promise and dug up the pond. Could you kindly come and see?")  .

I woke up, excited and anxious. Anxious because now I had to keep my part of the promise of getting them another pond. How things fell in place to ensure that my sincere promise was fulfilled is a story that I might narrate at some other time. What you truly will, starts materializing itself!

When I went to Ranchi the next week, I found that the poor villagers had really done it. 100 women, 15 children and 10 men had together dug up a pond! 

Simalia villagers collect fish from the pond

What worked in this case was inspiration, confidence-building and arousal of the self-esteem of people whose minds had been tinged with a beggar-like attitude by the approach of the governments that do not link development assistance for communities with their enterprise and initiative, and like to remain arrogant 'givers' treating the poor and the toiling masses as objects of pity and charity. The ignorant astrologers and priests have equally damaged the self-esteem of the poor by asking them to beg the deities by offering pooja to them for the smallest things in life, whereas in the BhagwadGeeta Sri Krishna discourages  sakaam pooja or worship of deities for obtaining worldly objects, reminding all humans that they are all  themselves essentially the Lord or God.


 It is true that initially we the outsiders inspired them, but then  their local  buddy SAGE and Bharat Shodh volunteers sustained the inspiration for the next three months. But they too did not dig the pond, except for making a symbolic contribution, perhaps. The villagers themselves did it!

People everywhere in the world, as in India, are like stationary trains, waiting, unfortunately, for an engine to provide them the locomotion. If local leadership develops, proper and well groomed leadership, every village will start picking up speed on the track of development and soon hit the destination of prosperity. 

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, we must work to inspire and build the confidence of the people in every village by building local leadership - a million leaders in over half a million villages of India! 


And why only in India! Everywhere in the world!. Come forward, willing people every where in the world, and join the mission of leadership development for shaping the future of your village, country and the world. 

Watch the video of pond digging by the Simaliya people on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/pksiddharth

The pictures below are of Satish and Bharat Bhushan, two of the local leaders, who along with  many other youngsters kept Simalia people organised and inspired  during the digging of the pond, which took nearly three months of toil.

हिन्दुस्तान हमारा (Our India)

हिंदुस्तान हमारा 

अमल हिमालय के आँगन में,

गंगा के तट न्यारी,

मनुज सभ्यता की गूँजी

पहली सुंदर किलकारी |

छंदों और ऋचाओं से

प्रतिध्वनित हुआ जग सारा,

संस्कृति रचता बढा वेग से

हिंदुस्तान हमारा |

मुड़ कर देखो दूर वहाँ

उस अद्भुत स्वर्णिम पल में,

प्रतिबिम्ब इतिहास का है उस

निर्मल गंगा जल में |

निर्मल थी वह मगर सफ़र में

हुई मलिन जलधारा,

सदियों तक परतंत्र रहा यह

हिंदुस्तान हमारा |

लाल किले पर सन सैंतालिस

में जब उठा तिरंगा,

आशाओं से भरा देश यह

द्राविड़-उत्कल-बंगा |

आशा टूटी, गिरी आस्था,

जन-जन ने स्वीकारा,

अपनों से ही छला गया यह

हिंदुस्तान हमारा |

सौ करोड़ हम हिन्दुस्तानी,

दो सौ करोड़ भुजाएं,

इन्हीं भुजाओं से मिल कर

भावी इतिहास बनायें |

नदी, कुँए, तालाब और

सड़कों के जाल बिछाएँ,

नहीं प्रतीक्षा करें किसी की,

पहला कदम उठायें |

हिन्दू-मुस्लिम-सिख-ईसाई,

हम सब को स्वीकारें,

प्यार-बंधुता से मिल-जुल कर

भारतवर्ष सँवारें |

सोने की चिड़िया फिर चहके,

बहे दूध की धारा,

हरियाली से हरा-भरा हो

हिंदुस्तान हमारा |

केरल से कंचनजंघा तक,

जम्मू से गोहाटी,

एक राष्ट्र है, एक कौम है,

सुख-दुख के हम साथी |

गौरवशाली था अतीत ज्यों,

सुभग भविष्य बनाएँ,

आओ मिल-जुल सभी साथिओं

देश-गान यह गाएँ |

भारत के मजदूर-किसानों,

बौद्ध, जैन, सन्यासी,

हिन्दू, मुस्लिम, सिख, ईसाई,

दलित और वनवासी |

सबने मिल कर देश गढा है,

सबने इसे सँवारा,

आओ मिल कर साथ पुकारें,

हिंदुस्तान हमारा !

हिंदुस्तान हमारा !

हिंदुस्तान हमारा !

Youth Song युवा गीत

 जोश जिगर में

जोश जिगर में, दिल में मस्ती,

आज मिटा देंगे हर हस्ती,

जो तोड़ेगी हिंदुस्तान!

हिंदुस्तान, हिंदुस्तान,

आन हमारी हिंदुस्तान!

दम बाजू में, मन में आन,

कदम उठें तो झलके शान,

कसम राम की, कसम खुदा की,

हम जोडेंगे हिंदुस्तान!

हिंदुस्तान, हिंदुस्तान,

शान हमारी हिंदुस्तान!

भ्रष्टाचार मिटायेंगे हम,

अमन-तसल्ली लायेंगे हम,

युवा देश के, जवाँ देश के,

हम बदलेंगे हिंदुस्तान!

हिंदुस्तान, हिंदुस्तान,

जान हमारी हिंदुस्तान!
गीत सुनने के लिए जाएँ यहाँ  http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=28C4EBDDD34CF37D 


click the picture below for a larger view.