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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Maulana’s 'gullak' initiative touches 60K students

Read & Lead Foundation President Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza with daughter Mariyam Mirza. Mumbai/Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: In the new age controlled by smart-gadgets and social media, an academic from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has sparked a small, head-turning and successful - ‘savings and reading’ revolution among middle-school children. Launched in 2006, by Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza, the humble initiative turns 20 this year and witnessed over 60,000 free savings boxes (gullaks)...

Maulana’s 'gullak' initiative touches 60K students

Read & Lead Foundation President Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza with daughter Mariyam Mirza. Mumbai/Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: In the new age controlled by smart-gadgets and social media, an academic from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has sparked a small, head-turning and successful - ‘savings and reading’ revolution among middle-school children. Launched in 2006, by Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza, the humble initiative turns 20 this year and witnessed over 60,000 free savings boxes (gullaks) distributed to Class V-VIII students in 52 government and private schools. “The aim was to inculcate a love for ‘saving and reading’ among young children. We started by presenting small plastic ‘gullaks’ (savings boxes) at the Iqra Boys & Girls High School, and later to many other schools,” Mirza said with a tinge of satisfaction. Scoffed by sceptics, it soon caught the eyes of the schools and parents who loved the idea that kept the kids off mischief, but gave them the joy of quietly slipping Re. 1 or even Rs. 5 save from their daily pocket money into the ‘gullak’. “That tiny ‘gullak’ costing barely Rs 3-Rs 5, becomes almost like their personal tiny bank which they guard fiercely and nobody dares touch it. At the right time they spend the accumulated savings to buy books of their choice – with no questions asked. Isn’t it better than wasting it on toys or sweets or amusement,” chuckled Mirza. A childhood bookworm himself, Mirza, now 50, remembers how he dipped into his school’s ‘Book Box’ to avail books of his choice and read them along with the regular syllabus. “Reading became my passion, not shared by many then or even now… Sadly, in the current era, reading and saving are dying habits. I am trying to revive them for the good of the people and country,” Maulana Mirza told The Perfect Voice. After graduation, Mirza was jobless for sometime, and decided to make his passion as a profession – he took books in a barter deal from the renowned Nagpur philanthropist, Padma Bhushan Maulana Abdul Karim Parekh, lugged them on a bicycle to hawk outside mosques and dargahs. He not only sold the entire stock worth Rs 3000 quickly, but asked astonished Parekh for more – and that set the ball rolling in a big way, ultimately emboldening him to launch the NGO, ‘Read & Lead Foundation’ (2018). “However, despite severe resources and manpower crunch, we try to cater to the maximum number of students, even outside the district,” smiled Mirza. The RLF is also supported by his daughter Mariyam Mirza’s Covid-19 pandemic scheme, ‘Mohalla Library Movement’ that catapulted to global fame, and yesterday (Oct. 20), the BBC telecast a program featuring her. The father-daughter duo urged children to shun mobiles, video-games, television or social media and make ‘books as their best friends’, which would always help in life, as they aim to gift 1-lakh students with ‘gullaks’ in the next couple of years. At varied intervals Mirza organizes small school book fairs where the excited kids troop in, their pockets bulging with their own savings, and they proudly purchase books of their choice in Marathi, English, Hindi or Urdu to satiate their intellectual hunger. Fortunately, the teachers and parents support the kids’ ‘responsible spending’, for they no longer waste hours before screens but attentively flip pages of their favourite books, as Mirza and others solicit support for the cause from UNICEF, UNESCO, and global NGOs/Foundations. RLF’s real-life savers: Readers UNICEF’s Jharkhand District Coordinator and ex-TISS alumnus Abul Hasan Ali is full of gratitude for the ‘gullak’ habit he inculcated years ago, while Naregaon Municipal High School students Lakhan Devdas (Class 6) and Sania Youssef (Class 8) say they happily saved most of their pocket or festival money to splurge on their favourite books...! Zilla Parishad Girls Primary School (Aurangpura) teacher Jyoti Pawar said the RLF has proved to be a “simple, heartwarming yet effective way” to habituate kids to both reading and savings at a tender age, while a parent Krishna Shinde said it has “changed the whole attitude of children”. “We encourage books of general interest only, including inspiring stories of youth icons like Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai (28) and environmentalist Greta Thunberg (23) which fascinates our students, and other popular children’s literature,” smiled Mirza. The Maulana’s RLF, which has opened three dozen libraries in 7 years, acknowledges that every coin dropped into the small savings boxes begins a new chapter – and turns into an investment in knowledge that keeps growing.

Mumbai shoos: ‘Kabootar, Ja Ja, Ja’

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Mumbai: After centuries of uneventful feeding of pigeons, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has cracked down on the practice, angering bird-lovers, activists and followers of Jain religion, co-existing in the country’s commercial capital.

 

Following an order of the Bombay High Court, the BMC first covered the famed Kabutarkhana, Dadar, with plastic sheets, deployed marshals to deter habitual feeders and trained guns on other designated or unofficial pigeon feeding spots across the metropolis.

 

Among other things, the high court has banned the ‘jivdaya’ activity and on July 31 directed the civic body to take stringent action, including lodging FIRs on those who blatantly continue the feeding despite the bar.

 

Apparently irked by the civic assault, Maharashtra Minister for Skill Development shot off an open missive to the BMC Commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, urging him for alternatives.

 

Earlier, Higher & Technical Education Minister Uday Samant informed the state legislature of the government’s plans to shut down all the 51 designated ‘Kabutarkhanas’ in Mumbai, some also having heritage value.

 

Though feeding birds, especially pigeons is an accepted norm among most communities, it has special significance for Jains as ‘jivdaya’ (non-violence as compassion for all the living) is a central tenet of Bhagwan Mahavir Jain’s principles of life.

 

Existing for centuries in Mumbai, since the past few decades, eyebrows have been raised over pigeon-feeding as it has led to unchecked growth in the population of these ‘symbols of peace’, estimated at between 150-200 pc.

 

Recent studies have indicated that pigeons are carriers of various airborne diseases that can harm local biodiversity and pose public health risks.

 

Pigeon droppings have bacteria causing respiratory problems, drivers, especially two-wheelers in the vicinity of the ‘kabutariyas’ face dangers and large numbers of these birds concentrated in some localities drive away other avians, besides the poo staining or damaging important buildings or monuments.

 

‘Recycling’ pigeons for a living!

Pigeon feeding is a familiar sight near the 51-odd Jain temples or certain other places of worship in Mumbai, where it is now banned, and other major cities now mull the same.

 

In Mumbai and other cities, there are professional ‘pigeon sellers’ who bring these birds and hawk them at strategic locations near Jain temples, minting money from the single stock. 

 

Many Jains - as a religious responsibility - whip out wads of currency to buy the birds, and then ask the seller to ‘release’ them from captivity as the client experiences a spiritual halo for his compassionate good deed, and leaves.

 

However, barely minutes later, the entire flock of pigeons returns to the same seller who again ‘jails’ them in the cages, awaiting the next devout Jain to pay up and give them wings of freedom…!


Bollywood fans recall the famed scene in the blockbuster "Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge" (1995) of the villainous Amrish Puri feeding pigeons by cajoling, 'auh, auh, auh'...

 

Later, even the besotted Shah Rukh Khan joins him, with a romantically sinister motive - melt Puri's heart to win his sweetheart Kajol...and succeeds !


Two decades ago, even Trafalgar Square in London barred it, but pigeon feeding reportedly continues near St. Peter’s Square flanking Apolistic Palace - the Pope’s residence in The Vatican (Rome, Italy), with even some Popes known to extend their generous hands to feed and bless the birds.

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