Manzil

There are very few lectures that leaves the students wishing it would not end. :) I don’t mean to be funny; today we (students of the MBP Course in the 2nd year) were addressed by a Mr. Ravi Gulati who runs an NGO named… Manzil.

Mr. Gulati (PGP: IIMA) is founder of Manzil, an NGO registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860. Beginning its actual operations even earlier in May 1996, Manzil is committed to providing need based welfare services to the under privileged children and women of Delhi slums. Since 1996, over 1,200 children and youth have benefited from Manzil.

Now this is a writeup on him that could be found online. People who have paragraphs on them that can be googled = Big Stuff, right? :) To be honest, I expected a Personality who was the pecking-order type who’d launch into a long-winding (possibly boring) talk about stuff that would fall against us like pebbles against a rock-wall.

Now Mr. Gulati was quite an exception. Understatement. He began with making an impactful exercise that went on to show that most of the things that you need to survive in this age, not more than perhaps two things- knowledge and such instruction is actually included in our formal instruction from school/College. Therefore, there is a greater solution, and skill sets that are greater in scope than what is taught in school.
Hence, he went on to explain how and why, the insipiration behind Manzil was to provide an education, and in a wholesome atmosphere that encourages the winds of creativity and sharing to break the barriers that normal schooling is bound by- that of an overly structured learning, ignoring intellectual capacity as the important basis for categorization of students, and the in-built gap between the student and teacher.

At Manzil, the process is that of sharing the knowledge that one has; hence I could teach you how to dance, and you could teach me the ‘Uses and relevance of the t-statistic’. (I never did get that!) :) Jokes apart, the effect of this process is that it shows that every student is a teacher at some point; leading on to the need to respect every individual one meets and to appreciate them for the valuable contributions they could make to your Life with the skills that they posses, but you do not.

Wow! I did’t realize I had absorbed that much from that talk. :)

The best part of the talk by Mr.Gulati was the great clarity (reflected in the higher recollection rate) with which he spoke out the ideas in mind and how he translated that into a reality by beginning Manzil.

Education is not to be instructive, nor overly-dependent on memory; but it is to teach the student a way of thinking. It is meant to unlock the potential latent within them, and this need not be academic; Manzil recognizes that.
‘They have a multitude of classes that are being carried on at present ranging from English to Mathematics to Computers to Music and Painting. All these classes are essentially based on the idea of a beyond-syllabus learning that is aimed at strengthening the basics of any given subject through understanding its foundational logic, and thenbuilding upon it gradually and creatively.’
This is the sort of atmosphere and education that encourages students to set their spirits free. That is the best thing about Manzil.

Perhaps that is the best message that he brings with him. Pursuing an idea or conviction that one has, and having the courage to translate that into a reality; could be one journey worth taking. It could hold the key to setting ourselves free. Mr. Gulati sure is. :)