When we were in Mumbai, Glen and I had the good fortune to meet an extraordinary entrepreneur named Ravi.
Ravi moved to Mumbai eight years ago from a rural area, initially to start a retail sales business. In the subsequent years he also established a small manufacturing operation and a travel services business.
Ravi speaks 9 languages at least conversationally – his native tongue, English, Hindi, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, and Russian. Remarkably, he is entirely self-taught, although he has recently started taking night classes to broaden his education.
Ravi has a very warm, engaging personality and you instantly like him. With a quick sense of humor, he laughs easily and is a very talented raconteur.
But I guess the thing that impressed us most about Ravi was this --- he is only 12 years old.
That’s right -- he is just twelve years old. His grandmother brought him to Mumbai when he was 4 years old, apparently to help the rest of the family survive because economic conditions were so poor in his hometown.
With his then 34-year old grandmother, Ravi began selling little trinkets on the streets around the Hanging Gardens, a relatively clean and nice area on a hill overlooking Mumbai. Based on others we saw around that area, begging was likely their earliest means of survival.
Over the subsequent eight years, Ravi’s natural born talents emerged. He learned how to approach strangers and pitch them his product. Closing a sale, he then followed his customers around with their tour guides, learning not only their language but also the stories the guides told about the Hanging Gardens or the Tower of Silence or other sights.
As he made a little money, Ravi was able to buy raw materials for his grandmother to make fans of peacock feathers at night that he could sell the next day – adding more profit to his sales.
Ravi is nothing if not fearless and it was an easy step for him to suggest to a trinket customer that they let him lead them through the Gardens. He has a direct manner and a warm smile that are impossible to resist. Within a few years, Ravi could give a respectable tour of the Gardens in a variety of languages.
He was very open to discussing his life and introducing us to his grandmother. They live in a tiny shack in the Mumbai slums, paying 3,000 rupees per month rent (about $60). Ravi does the grocery shopping and prepares the meals for the two of them.
Three nights a week, he goes to a teacher along with several other children to learn to reading, writing and arithmetic. They have no books and the “blackboard” is the dirt on the floor. He pays for these classes, but I can’t recall the cost.
He does own two books – that he purchased – and he is very proud of them. They weren’t titles we recognized, but they were a very big deal to him.
He is excellent at mental math -- quickly adding up prices for a variety of product combinations he was pitching us. Then, converting rupees to dollars, at 45 rupees per dollar. (Glen and I checked his math, but we were a lot slower). My guess is he can do similar conversion for Euros or Pounds Sterling.
I asked Ravi what he wanted to be when he grew up: “I would liked to be a certified Tour Guide”. The government regulates the number of tour guides and it is a respectable, good paying career.
Glen asked he what he would do if he had a LOT of money and without hesitation here was his reply:
Ravi: First, I would give money to the people I know around here who need it more than I do. Then, I would give some of it to Indians I don’t know, but who are poor. And the rest I would keep for myself.
Glen: What would you do with your money?
Ravi: I would buy a business.
Glen: Would you buy a small retail business?
Ravi: Oh no, I would buy a very big business in the oil industry. The oil business is very important and I would buy a big oil company.
After and hour or so, we had to say goodbye to Ravi and his grandmother. Needless to say, we bought a lot of his peacock fans and we paid him very well for giving us perhaps the most inspiring tour either Glen or I had ever experienced.
If you are in Mumbai – go to the Hanging Gardens and look for this extraordinary boy. It will be the most educational, inspiring and fun hour you’ll spend in Mumbai. And ask him to tell the story of the Tower of Silence – you’ll be fascinated.
Hello,
I am glad to see a comparison of education between cultures. One must remember when comparing countries, that only America educates all their children. China only educates the city kids. The poor & migrants are left on their own. Usually, only those who can afford uniforms are offered an education in developing countries. We're not thrilled with apples to oranges comparisons.
Posted by: Karen | February 29, 2008 at 01:42 AM
Karen,
Only America is wealthy enough to educate all children. India gained its independence in 1947, China is still not free, suffered through the brutal killings of the Cultural Revolution and is very poor.
But both countries in the past 20 years have each lifted over 300 million people out of poverty - the greatest achievement in human history.
Before you disparage the Indians and Chinese for not living up to our wealthy standards - let's give them a little credit for what they have done (without the billions of dollars in US aid that Africa has received) and let's give them just a little more time to prove what they can accomplish.
I'm impressed with what those countries have done to help their poor in just the past decade.
Of course, I live in Memphis where 30% of children live in poverty, so my "American" standards may be different from yours.
We're not exactly thrilled with what America has done to educate its poor compared to its wealthy - if you want to look at "American" apples and oranges.
Posted by: Bob Compton | February 29, 2008 at 02:34 PM