The Lingo Kid

   I first met Ravi Kumar, aka "the lingo kid" when he was just 10 years old. After taking a video of my encounter with him that went viral with over 3 million views and answering hundreds of emails about him, I decided to tell his story. It's also the story of so many other children around the world, born into poverty, who through sheer determination and ingenuity strive to lift themselves beyond the limitations that life has imposed upon them.

I was visiting my uncle and aunt in Mumbai and had decided to take a trip to the site of one of my earliest childhood memories, the hanging gardens. I had first travelled to Mumbai with my mother at the age of two weeks and was then raised there by my grandparents for the next few years, before returning to England. We had also spent many holidays in Mumbai when it was still known as "Bombay", so I had a special connection to this city, where my mother was born.

The hanging gardens are terraced gardens on the top of Malabar hill, overlooking the Arabian Sea and were built in the late nineteenth century over the top of a reservoir. The gardens contain many hedges cut into the shapes of various animals. I had vivid memories of these "sculptures" since my childhood and it was as I wandered around the gardens reminiscing about my childhood, that I was approached by a young boy who was selling peacock fans.

 As I saw him approach me out of the corner of my eye, my first instinct was to continue walking, as I had been accosted by so many street hawkers trying to sell me countless objects and souvenirs I did not want or need. I stopped momentarily since he started to give me his sales pitch in English with an amusing tag line. He referred to his wares as "walking Indian air conditioners". The thought of a handheld fan made from peacock feathers  being described as a portable air conditioner was enough for me to be impressed with the creativity of this kid. I reflected for a moment and thought it was smart, but not enough for me to buy something that I really couldn't see myself using. I carried on walking, smiling back to acknowledge him.

I saw a look of concentration on his face as if he was trying to work out a strategy with he could hook me into buying a fan and then he tried his sales pitch again, but this time in Hindi. It was particularly interesting to me that he switched into another language, that's one of the most important criteria in communicating with another person - speaking their language. Since he had already tried English without a verbal response from me, he tried Hindi. When I carried on walking, still not responding he didn't give up, he started asking me which country I was from. He said it in English, Hindi, French and Spanish. I was stunned that a street kid in India had the capability to speak these different European languages and the enterprise to do so to find the right language to communicate in. I stopped walking. I thought even though I had no intention of buying any of his fans, I felt that I should at least engage with him as he was making such an effort. I asked him what other languages he knew. He rattled off his pitch in Italian, German, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew. He told me he also spoke 4 other Indian dialects. At this point I was seriously impressed.

I asked him a lot of questions about how he knew these languages and how extensive his knowledge of them was. He told me he spent most of his days at the gardens talking to tourists from all over the world. He had been able to educate himself with the basics of all of these languages, enough to hold a basic conversation with them as well as learn the necessary technical words to sell his fans in all these languages. I admired his ingenuity at learning different languages that allowed him to connect to so many people, many more than if he had only known English or Hindi. I am sure that the tourists who heard this 10 year old child speaking their languages would have been just as surprised and as appreciative of his efforts as I was. This was more than enough justification for me to buy a few of his fans, even though a fan was the last thing that the comparatively cool weather in Canada, where I was returning to, warranted.

I found Ravi's personality and his spirit inspiring, particularly because he had been able to transcend the lack of opportunities of his background and poverty by creating his own through his efforts and ability to communicate with others. I asked him if I could record his repertoire of languages and put it on YouTube. He was very happy about demonstrating his linguistic abilities for all the world to see. I thanked him and wished him the best in his endeavors, suggesting he go to school with the money he earned and develop his talents. About 5 years passed before I returned again to Mumbai. This time I went again to the hanging gardens with my uncle with the intention of perhaps meeting Ravi again and interviewing him about his life. I really had no idea if he would still be there or if he had moved on. I knew it was a long shot, but decided to try it anyway.

I didn't see him at the same entrance to the gardens that I had previously, but asked around a few of the vendors who directed us to where we might find him. He was well known and well-liked by the other vendors who sold souvenirs and refreshments at the gates to the gardens. Ravi was there. I recognized him instantly as I had seen the videos so many times that I knew his face even though he was now a teenager. Ravi had added a couple more languages to his collection and could now speak some basic Mandarin too, as the influx of visitors from China had increased. We interviewed him and I posted the videos again on YouTube. I told him that we would make him famous and bring him more business which he acknowledged as he told me that due to the "internet man" (my previous YouTube video) people had come to find him after they had seen his video. We gave him some money, which I told him was towards his education which I strongly urged him to pursue. He thanked us and told me that he would like to go to school, but didn't know who else could do this job in his family. I was well aware of the catch 22 situation he was in. Since he was the primary income earner for his family due to his talents, going to school would compromise the income he gained for his family from selling fans.

The videos that I had taken of Ravi, provoked a massive reaction. I have received and continue to receive so many comments and personal messages due to these videos. The vast majority of them are extremely positive and encouraging, though there are a few offensive emails about him and also criticizing his vocabulary, grammar or accent in speaking the various languages. The people who focus on this are completely missing the point. They are focused on the technical aspects rather than seeing the big picture. A kid from an impoverished background and without a formal education in most of these languages using his communication skills and an open spirit to connect with people and break down the barriers of "us" and "them". I doubt most of the people who bought a fan from him needed a fan, they bought it because of who he is as a human being. While backpacking around India many years before, I remember meeting a boy who sold newspapers to mostly British tourists and had memorized the postal codes of the whole of the UK so that he could tell the tourists what their postal code was upon hearing their address. In a similar way to Ravi, he had found a "hook" that had increased his sales of newspapers. The fact that a child living thousands of miles away could know a detail such as this and hence make a connection was astounding to most people. Ravi had extended his ability to connect with even more people by learning the basics of so many major languages.

When I returned to Canada, I felt mixed emotions. I was happy that I had met Ravi again, and was able to interview him, but I was also disheartened that despite his talent and genius spirit that he was still selling fans at the hanging gardens. This is a common predicament for so many gifted and talented children around the world who simply don't have the means to develop their abilities through education and often find themselves doing the same routine work throughout their lives. Apart from the tragedy of a wasted ability, it also means that the cycle of poverty remains unbroken. Since our children are the future of the world we live in, it makes sense that we would invest in them, and give them the education they need to make a difference in our communities. This needs to be on a global as well as a local level, since we live in a globalized world. We are all interconnected, and this is more apparent now due to the Internet age we live in, than ever before. 

Googling "lingo kid", the name I gave to the video I published on YouTube, will bring up plenty of websites referring to his linguistic skill and how he wished he had gone to school. He is even featured on CNN travel and given as an example by a professor of Georgetown university of ingenious marketing. It's really heartening that so many people were moved by him and I hope this will translate into something bigger. A realization that the energy and optimism of youth facing difficult circumstances needs to buoyed by the goodwill and generosity of those who have the money and power to do so. I have monetized the videos I posted on YouTube, donating to children's charities such as UNICEF. I would urge anyone who is interested to visit their website.

According to UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, out of the world’s 2.2 billion children, a billion children live in poverty. This means they do not have the nutrition, resources or education to help themselves out of this predicament. Compare this to the fact that the richest 1% of the world’s population will own most of the world’s wealth by next year (based on Oxfam's report at DAVOS). It should be alarming to anyone regardless of their politics that the gap between rich and poor has widened to this extent. Alarming not just because of the inequality which is obvious, but also because of the financial and social systems that remain unchanged despite its widening. Meanwhile, the world's collective wealth has increased dramatically.

Why should we care? Children are the most vulnerable of those who live in poverty and the most deserving of assistance. No political argument can justify the suffering of children as the collateral damage of poverty. There are millions of children like Ravi all over the world, in every country, developed and developing. In the USA, the richest country in the world, UNICEF states that one in three children live in poverty. Children who cannot earn money through other means are often forced into criminal activities including drugs and prostitution. This is a deplorable fact and a good reason why it is our collective social responsibility to give these children a head start through education and charity. It makes sense after all to invest in our own future.

Back to where I came from

As a child growing up in England, I was told on more than one occasion that I should go back to where I came from. Being a born optimist, I knew that the obvious intention of the people who said this, was to encourage me to get to know my roots. Many years later after much soul-searching about questions of identity, as a British Indian,  I decided to do just that - when I was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime.

 My parents had moved to Hyderabad, due to my father being employed as a consultant for the construction of the new airport. I wanted to spend time with them as well as to experience the country I had originated from. Altogether, I spent at least a year living in Hyderabad that had been a real education for me, both mentally and spiritually. I went to India with an open mind, not wanting to be prejudiced by all the stereotypes that even I had previously held of India and Indians. I discovered to my delight that I am proud of belonging to such an amazing country with such a rich and diverse culture that is often misunderstood when seen through a Western filter. I had visited many times before, on holiday, but for too short a duration to have any real understanding of what I saw and more importantly, the cultural context it exists in. In the time I had in India I made a pledge to myself to try and observe and interact using my imagination and intuition as a guide rather than what I thought I knew.

Hyderabad has a long and interesting history. I will not even attempt go into detail about that as it would require a book or a number of books to do it any justice. Since I am referring more to the culture of the city, I will start by saying that it does have a distinct culture that is recognized throughout India. Through its various rulers from medieval times to the present, the culture of Hyderabad was always in a state of flux. North and South Indian traditions mingled here when it was an independent princely state with its own flag, army and currency.

 It had a unique culture that resisted invasions and change from outside due partly to its geographical position on the Deccan plateau. Hyderabad was a cosmopolitan city with rulers and influences from Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Hindi and even English, reflected in its clothes and food, clothing, arts and architecture. You can still see remnants of these today as well as the Hyderabadi Tehzeeb of respect, hospitality, openness and tolerance to all faiths, something that Hyderabad was known for, and that had allowed its multiculturalism to flourish.

 

When I first arrived in Hyderabad the first thing that struck me was that it was very crowded compared to the almost empty streets of Vancouver. This was a huge difference in my spatial awareness since the thought of so many living beings being in close proximity was stressful on a level I hadn’t even previously thought about. I did get used to this eventually, as like all things, the initial change in perception is a challenge but gradually becomes normal. The pollution irritated me as I had been used to the clean fresh mountain air of British Columbia and had even forgotten what pollution was. 

The other big difference I noticed, as I spent a good deal of time walking around and taking auto-rickshaws, was the number of crazy drivers who have no regard for laws, but did seem to have eyes in the back of their heads. People driving in India were hyper-aware of their surroundings, evidenced by the high number of near-misses I very anxiously witnessed.

Actually, it was my first impression was that they were near-misses, but then I realized that there was a method in the madness. Indian drivers were like dolphins, not that they looked like them or had big wide-smiling faces (though some of them did), but they were using sound to navigate, a bit like sonar! Incredible as it might sound it is true. One of the first things you would notice if you travelled to an Indian city with a high volume of drivers is a cacophonic orchestra of car, motorbike and scooter horns. To the uninitiated traveler who has just arrived from a country where horns are used only in an emergency or out of anger it seems as if the Indian driver just likes to toot their horn a lot. In fact the horn is used in a highly sophisticated manner, just like the clicking sounds a dolphin makes and for a similar purpose. Dolphins make sounds for echolocation to build up an acoustic picture of their surroundings. Drivers in India use their car horns to give information about their location in relation to other vehicles, and the other vehicles do the same, allowing them to build a similar acoustic picture, hence the sounds serve to regulate traffic flow and prevent accidents.  There are also different types of sounds that are produced based on the duration of the horn and the frequency it is pressed with. For example there is a rapid “bip bip bip” which alerts other drivers that there is a car in the near vicinity that may be in the blind spot of the driver in front. Another beep indicates overtaking and yet another when someone is changing lanes or trying to get behind another vehicle. A long beep with the hand jammed down hard on the horn is used when a cow enters your lane without using it’s indicators. 

There were many things like this that I never understood on my many previous visits to India, I didn’t see the relationship between the different aspects of culture and why people did things the way they did.  After all culture is essentially any learned behavior over a period of time. And like any behavior that exists, there are always reasons why it evolved. In this case, the cow is a sacred animal and is therefore allowed to roam just about anywhere. They do seem to keep their calm in rush hour traffic and bring a sense of serenity to an otherwise chaotic scene. Cultural practices that make no sense in one context may make total sense in another. Only by observation and questioning people who are articulate and educated about those cultural practices can help to elucidate these reasons for people like myself. 

My parents were excellent in trying to explain cultural practices as my brother and I were growing up in London and then the leafy, affluent green-belt of Surrey in England. The area we grew up in was middle-class and predominantly white. When we moved there, there were only 2 other families of any ethnic background in the area. Even with my parents ensuring that we had contact with other South-Asian families and culture we were still heavily influenced by the British view of Indian culture. Therefore in all honesty, there were so many things about Indian culture we really did not fully understand. This contributed toward my decision for leaving behind my cushy (“Cushy” is from Sanskrit origin incidentally) job and venturing to live in India for a year with my parents.

It was great to live with my folks after having lived away for so many years. I found that it was more like hanging out with old friends. After reacquainting myself with family and friends, I spent some time finding my way around the old city (getting lost deliberately) just to see where I would end up. This was a most excellent adventure and I saw and spoke to many people, even improving my level of Urdu and Hindi to the point where local people could actually understand what I was saying! I tried to talk to people from all walks of life so I could get a more objective understanding of the city than just from my parents friends and relatives. I had many conversations with rickshaw drivers, shop-keepers, beggars, Nariel panee walas (coconut water vendors) and anyone who had time to talk, which incidentally, was quite a lot of people. I think a universal truth I experienced, which was brought home to me in India, is that if you have the will to communicate with others, people generally respond favorably if they can sense it is genuine and without expectations. People also happen to be interested in people who show interest in them. I spent so much time talking with people I encountered, that sometimes I wondered how they had the time to talk. I mean, didn’t they have more important things to do? Wasn’t their time valuable?

Time is another culturally determined concept . I discovered this much to my chagrin at first, but then when I embraced it, it changed the way I will understand it forever. I never truly understood the concept of Indian time until after spending a significant amount of it getting frustrated that people didn’t seem to have too much regard for it in India. I thought that I was a little tardy compared to my fellow English citizens, but not usually by more than about 15 minutes for social occasions and a maximum of a couple of minutes for business. For business I was usually quite punctual. When I first arrived in India, and was helping my father set-up a computer network, I would make appointments with various contractors and they would never be on time. Even after agreeing a certain time, they would still turn up late and look surprised when I showed my disdain at this. They would of course apologize profusely, but then be late again the next time. “Five minutes” seemed to be a favorite quantity often promised but seldom delivered. It could mean anything at all from a literal five minutes to even a day or two later. I then finally understood that the god of the old testament must have been Indian. It all made sense. He created the earth in six days - of Indian time!

In Britain, the concept of time is very precise, ‘The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom.’ To put it more simply, a second is the duration of the half-life of cesium. This is the standard by which it is measured and an incredibly precise atomic clock runs on this principle. You cannot get more materialistic about time than matter determining time itself.

Compare this to the Sanskrit inspired “ab” meaning now, which also in Vedic Sanskrit means water. The concept of “now” itself is therefore a fluid one, the right time for something to happen is in the moment when it actually happens, which makes perfect sense in a timeless world that was invented before the industrial revolution! It does sound much more spiritual and romantic, but does not necessarily work in the practical world. The problem is that the same concept of time exists even now in India, but as a wise auto rickshaw driver once told me, “it’s only a problem if you make it a problem.” I asked him what he meant by that and he replied, “expectation is the mother of all frustration. If you expect something to happen at a certain time and it does not, you will be frustrated. If you don’t have expectations, you will be happy!” I smiled at his wisdom, and gave him an extra tip for the lesson, even though by then I had arrived late for my appointment. 

My parents lived on road no.3 in Banjara hills, nice short name for a road, no complicated spelling when writing that address down for someone. The area of Banjara hills where we stayed was fairly affluent but just a mile down the road, the picture was very different. Past the park and the eye hospital lead to an area called Punjagutta, a shopping district with some residential buildings and lower income housing where a flyover had collapsed killing more than 20 people just a few months before I arrived. Many of them were laborers, who routinely work in unsafe conditions. I observed many laborers working on buildings with scaffolding made from bamboo and no safety harnesses. I also saw women who were often accompanied by minors, working in construction including breaking up concrete, something I was unaccustomed to in the West. 

The level of disparity between rich and poor shocked me at first, I saw such extremes of wealth and living conditions that it had the effect of re-calibrating my thinking.  For example, there is no social welfare system as we know in the West and people who are poor have to create their own work , beg or die. The choices one has in life are as brutal as they are simple and influences the conservative mentality that so many Indians have.

One day I observed a beggar for several hours who sat on the street with his bowl and beseeching passers-by for assistance telling them tales of the woe he had encountered on life’s journey. He approached two laborers who seemed to be a little better off than he was and interestingly, they chatted with him for a while and reciprocated with their own similar stories of woe. 

After a while a peanut vendor happened to pass him who he also started a similar conversation with. Rather than ignore him as so many others had, he stopped and talked to him for a good twenty minutes and at the end handed him a small parcel of freshly roasted peanuts. It was heart-warming to see and in my short observation, I noted that the people who had the most time to give the beggar were themselves not that far removed, economically at least, from his position. 

Another day, I saw a dead man lying in the street. It was an odd feeling to be going out for a walk and just encountering a body lying there on the ground without any warning. I assume he had just passed away from some unknown malady and lay were he had collapsed. I felt that I should do something but having not been in that situation ever before I had no idea what to do. Should I call an ambulance? Or the police?  I stood around and watched as other local people naturally gravitated to sorting out the situation- as much as death can be sorted out. He was obviously poor and did not have any family to bury or cremate him. It became apparent to me that he was at least known to some of the shopkeepers on the road. Within the space of an hour since I had encountered him, the local people covered him in a shroud and placed garlands of flowers on his corpse. Someone place a basket near his feet and passers-by gave money for his cremation. I talked to them for a while and they explained to me that we all will go one day, death is the great equalizer, so we all have to do something, right?

It was incredible to see that even though there was no welfare system for him, the society around naturally performed its civic responsibilities. In such a sad situation, It felt good that people were in tune with a natural level of responsibility beyond any imposed one. I felt saddened by many things I saw as well as elated and inspired and I then realized why Bollywood films are characterized by this emotional roller-coaster ride and heightened sense of melodrama. Particularly for the masses, they serve a function that people who live in this reality can relate to. It’s a tough life in India for most of the people who live there, over 300 million live in poverty, at least 11% of the 1.3 billion population live on less than a dollar a day. I was inspired by people I saw who could make a business out of the most simple of things just to survive and did so with a smile on their face. 

People smiled easily, I would just need a hint of a smile on my face to activate theirs, so ready were people to share pleasant feelings and emotions.

In stark contrast to the poverty, there was also opulence and extravagance from the latest models of Mercedes, porches and BMW's driving alongside carts pulled by bullocks or even by people. The buildings in the “Hi-Tech” city of Hyderabad look like they belong in a modern Western metropolis with fingerprint  scanners at the entrances and their carefully manicured gardens. These areas were direct evidence of the economic boom India has experienced along with the growing number of gated communities and security guards to protect their wealthy denizens. There are so many visual incongruities, such as these expensive hi-tech buildings right next to shanty settlements of homes made with tarpaulin and sticks. It’s hard not to muse on the yin and yang of extreme poverty and extreme wealth, and leads one to think about life’s meaning when the material world presents both its beauty and ugliness simultaneously.

I was fascinated by the fact that in India you can get virtually any kind of material goods from silk sarees to designer jeans. Textiles are in abundance you just need a guide to know where to go and buy it. There are so many markets and bazaars, you can get completely lost amongst the myriad artifacts. The cuisine in Hyderabad is so diverse, you can get any kind of food you want, including Chinese, Mexican, Thai and even Canadian sweet corn!

 

I ate mostly South-Indian dosas, idli and Hyderabadi biryani - the local specialty. I also saw many buildings and monuments that were testament to the riches the city once possessed. The Nizam of Hyderabad was once the richest man in the world. He is there on the Time magazine cover of 1937, proclaimed as such. Not that I think this is the pinnacle of achievement, rather that it is a reflection of how great civilizations come and go. We visited one of his palaces and witnessed its opulence and splendor, remnants of a bygone era.

There were always some kind of sounds or music on the streets virtually all the time. Somewhere you could hear the beating of a drum or an azhan or a musical festival. The architecture of the city was festooned with the signs of every culture and religion that had existed in India. I saw Mosques, Churches, temples of every variety and hue. I met people of every background there and the amazing thing is that despite their different philosophies of life and their own personal religious convictions, they all seemed to get along. Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Bhuddist faiths were all represented. 

Even the archaic monuments built centuries ago had places of worship for all, direct evidence of India's multi-religious past. Religion and spirituality are a big theme in India, The material life is put into perspective here as it seems small and two-dimensional in contrast to the multitude of other experiences the mind is constantly subjected to. I can completely understand the attraction India has for many who want to experience something different, beyond the usual humdrum aspects of living in the West. India is a real masala mix of old and new, rich and poor, the banal and the awe-inspiring.

From a personal perspective there is another dimension to all this. I always yearned for some deeper meaning to life and I knew that travelling would help to satisfy this proclivity. By going ‘back to where I came from’, I was also reconciling myself with a part of my identity. My family origins are Persian and Afghani as well as Indian, but that is the culture that the last few generations of my family had lived in. If I viewed India and its people negatively or positively, whether I took the trouble to understand them, It would be reflected in my own self-perception. 

If life is a journey, you can’t know where you are going if you don’t know
where you came from.