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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.

The eternal joy of sharing a saree

Pune's ‘Aapalee’- The Saree Library is one of its kind that celebrates sarees by making them accessible to everyone

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“Many women love sarees but don’t always have access to them or they find it inconvenient to wear them often. This thought was a trigger point to create Aapalee - The Saree Library — a space that celebrates sarees and makes them accessible to everyone,” says Pune based Pallavi Deshpande who at the age of 38 years, runs a business of renting out a wide range of sarees. Deshpande believes that women must wear sarees and enjoy the process without any hustle which seems difficult in today’s world in which everyone wants fast fashion and quick availability of resources.


Deshpande’s love for sarees started at home watching her mother and grandmother drape sarees every day. Over the years, from being just a type of attire, sarees transformed into a strong connection to memories, stories, and identity. “One moment that stands out was when a friend borrowed a saree for her special event from my personal collection and said it made her feel truly herself. That simple joy of sharing sparked the realisation that sarees are meant to be worn, celebrated, and circulated — not just stored away. That thought planted the first seed for Aapalee,” said Deshpande.


Deshpande has transformed the third floor of her bungalow located in Pune’s Nigdi where she stays with her in-laws, husband and her 6-year-old son into a saree renting studio.


While her favourite saree type is a handwoven pure silk Paithani from her wedding collection— she explains how the saree type itself was a great trigger point for her to start this business. She said, “it represents the perfect blend of tradition, craftsmanship, and timeless beauty. It reminds me why I started this journey — to keep these weaves alive and accessible.”


Deshpande runs the business with her partner, Amruta Kanetkar who comes from a makeup industry and styling background, which perfectly complements her creative and communication skills.


While the business idea is not the first of its kind in India, what sets Deshpande’s Apalee apart from other businesses is its initiative of building a saree community. Deshpande said, “I have started with my friends and family. We all women possess heavy and expensive sarees that we end up wearing only once in 20 years. Women bring their sarees to our studio. We study the quality and decide the price of rent. When that saree goes on rent, we pay 20 percent of what we earned through that saree to the owner of the saree. This particular idea has got a lot of encouragement. This way, we have involved other women in our business who get an opportunity to earn money by sharing their sarees with us.”


Aapalee offers a range of services. Firstly, it has over 400 sarees of different varieties from Kanjeevaram to Paithani to Georgette to many more that they give on rent. Besides, they also provide ready-towear already draped sarees for college going girls for a one-time occasion. Many women even get their own saree draped at the studio.


Deshpande quit a very high paying stable job to start this business. Deshpande who was raised in Gwalior of Madhya Pradesh, finished her BSC in electronics in Gwalior and moved to Pune for Higher studies. There she completed MBA in marketing and has over 15 years of experience in handling projects at companies such as Cap Gemini, Accenture and a couple of financial institutions. She quit as an assistant project manager at JP Morgan Chase earlier this year and started this business of saree renting in July 2025. Deshpande said, “We’re still in our early stages, so our focus right now is more on building the community, curating quality sarees, and refining our services. But yes, the response has been very encouraging. For us, the biggest success is the emotional connection people are forming with Aapalee — the profits will naturally follow.”


Having said that, Deshpande believes if you identify what you truly enjoy doing, and have family support, nothing can stop you from chasing a dream, as long as you have meticulously planned your finances.

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