A Day Spent In NavGurukul, Bangalore
Continuing my series about my experience in CodeChef, wanted to write about a life-changing incident. Now that it is work-from-home and a slow-down, I thought of posting something that is not Covid-19 related.
I am entirely new to the programming world and the community, so there are many terms, new languages, popular programmers, institutions etc., that I am not aware of. One fine day this February 2020, CodeChef Unit Head Anup Kalbalia, came to Bangalore from the Mumbai head office. I thought he came to meet the Bangalore team. But no, meeting us was just a part of the big plan. He came to Bangalore to visit an institution called Navgurukul where he planned to be the whole day.
He and the Mumbai team were preparing some learning plan and content over phone. That’s what made me interested and I asked what is Navgurukul, and why go there for the entire day. Usually, corporate meetings at max can take half a day. Seeing our interest, he invited me and my colleague, Mudit Srivastava, to join him. He told us, one Saturday of yours will be gone, but you will not repent it. I did a bit of googling on Navgurukul. But what I saw in Google was nothing to what I saw in real. So here is the story of my visit to Navgurukul, and why it should interest ANY programmer.
I am not sure how Navgurukul introduces itself to the world, but to my eyes, it was first a 4 to 5 storey building that looked like a long narrow hostel. The building is on the outskirts of Bangalore on the Sarjapur road. Reaching there from the heart of the city took us close to 2 hours. The area is a natural farmland with cabbage and vegetables growing everywhere.
Upon Arrival: When we reached there and parked the car outside, Anup and Mudit asked me to go inside and cross-check if we are at the right place. I had to go as it was primarily a building for young budding women programmers. I went in while they were waiting in the car. There was an elderly person sitting on a chair and few local residents on the ground floor, and upon asking in my very-broken Kannada, he told me to go up to reach the office. I signalled Anup and Mudit to come, and we took a very narrow staircase. The first floor crossed, and no one was to be seen. The second floor crossed and we were panting for breath (perils of using Lifts).
The Office: At some floor, second or third not sure, we were greeted by a young girl, who looked like a school kid. She introduced herself and took us to another room. It was indeed a hostel set up, with rooms next to each other. We entered a room and there were three girls sitting on the floor and their laptops placed on the table. There were many young girls all around, walking past us. There was no furniture except for the few small laptop tables. We were also supposed to sit down, and the girls got us cushions to sit on. I still was taking everything slowly into my system.
The girls were talking in broken English and were talking as if they knew us from ages. The formal talks and communication you see in the IT world, has not entered this world. This was different. The hidden personality that we all hold inside us, the one that we were when we were in schools and colleges, was coming out from me too. I was enjoying talking freely with these girls. I asked them who are the three girls, they replied they are from Afghanistan. They are from families there who could not support their education or love for programming. So they came to India to join Navgurukul. And yes, indeed on a Saturday morning they were sitting and studying.
By that time, another bubbly girl came into the picture. I asked her where are the teachers/seniors. She said Navgurukul doesn’t have teachers. I asked then who told these girls to study at 10 am in the morning on a Saturday. She said no one does, they have their rules that they follow.
Can you believe that? Young teenaged girls have come to a place to study programming and are doing so rigorously on their own! I still couldn’t believe this. We always needed a teacher to enforce the curriculum. So I silently waited to meet the ‘teachers’.
Next Anup, took over and he asked them — So where will we have the class? They were running from room to room to fix a good one with a whiteboard and enough plug-points for everyone’s laptop. Finally, they found one. They asked us to come there. A small room with pantry space and a whiteboard greeted us. No furniture, except a short table on which the whiteboard was placed. I took a corner seat with Mudit on the ground. While they all sat in the centre of the room. One or two were running out to call others. They were calling each other in English, but when emotions were running high few were speaking in Hindi. The moment Hindi came out, few who were sitting next to me were warning the other girls to switch back to English. So I understood it was a learning exercise. All this ensured that we had a constant smile on our faces. Who would not smile seeing this friendly mayhem? Finally, all came including the girls from Afghanistan and Anup got up.
Before starting, to break the ice, Anup asked them which language he should speak. Majority shouted English. Afghanistan girls were happy too. So Anup started with programming basics and told them he won’t teach any complex subjects, he will only teach them about Flow Charts. And all were happy. As the class started and Anup’s English picked up, things became difficult for the girls as few could not understand what was taught. So Anup then offered to communicate both in Hindi and English. Watching all this from afar was a different experience altogether — A bunch of young girls eager to learn the basics of programming from someone who is heading a community of programmers from 180+ countries.
And all this, because the teacher loves to teach and the students love to learn. The subject is the same — Programming.
Anup gave few tests and the girls were answering that in their notebooks and bringing it to him to show. He then asked the best two flowchart makers to explain their logic to others, and others were debating with them about the logic used. The arguments were in broken English but were powerful and heated too.
Lunch: We didn’t know when it was lunchtime. I just remember that the girls asked us to come to a room. There again all were sitting on the floor and eating lunch. We were taken to the inside room where the kitchen was. From two very big utensils placed on a hot stove, we got hot rice and dal. For a moment I thought, is that it? Then, when I understood that’s it, we sat cross-legged and started eating. While eating we were told that the cooking rule was, each day two girls get the responsibility to cook for 60 people. They learn and cook. Simply awesome plan for young girls.
When I finished my lunch without leaving a single grain of rice in my plate, I understood, that was enough. Yes, hot rice and hot dal can compete with any restaurant meal across the globe. We definitely wanted more, but we had to refuse since it was cooked for so many girls and we did not want them to go hungry.
Evening: Post lunch, the class continued. After sitting some time in the class, I came out to meet Alisha. Now Alisha is another young girl but she is the ‘teacher’ I was searching for. But officially her role is that of the hostel warden and administrator. She has given complete freedom to the young girls and these girls are all responsibly doing their tasks too. Each classroom has chart papers on the wall that say “if you don’t talk in English during the class, your mobile phones will be confiscated”. I loved this rule. It meant, Alisha was allowing them to use their mobile phones. Alisha told me many things about Navgurukul and the girls. From the class and the test given by Anup itself, I could see many girls were super-intelligent and were picking up fast what was been taught.
When the class ended, the girls said thank you to Anup and Mudit and a few hugged me too. We took a group picture. They even wanted Anup and CodeChef team to prepare a learning plan for them to study programming. We climbed down the stairs after saying bye and the bubbly girl was still with us. She stood there until our vehicle left the road.
That was how February 8th ended for me. But the day is still so clear in my mind.
Now let me summarize:
Navgurkul: An institution for young girls who want to learn programming for a year and prepares them in their communications as well.
Students: Young girls from the underprivileged family background who love programming and want to excel in their career.
Teachers: Anyone who loves teaching, does it for free and loves to support a good cause.
End-result:
Companies can get some very good programmers from this lot and they also get a chance to be part of a good initiative too. (By the way, CodeChef hires from Navgurkul and my colleagues from the engineering team are the best brainiacs I have ever met).
The students who get placed, come back and mentor the next batch of Navgurukul
Founders of Navgurukul: The entire process is the brainchild of two very young people — Abhishek Gupta and Rishabh Verma.
I am not a programmer. But what I saw on my visit to Navgurukul, really changed my life.
On one side there are these young people who started an initiative called Navgurukul, for students from an underprivileged background and strive hard to remove the inequalities in our education system,
AND
on the other hand, there are people like Anup who are travelling to a different state, only to teach these kids about programming. Because teaching and programming both are their passions in life.
So I would like to call all programmers from anywhere across the globe, to reach out to institutions like Navgurukul near you and give them your knowledge for free. Try your best to teach a school student or a student who loves to learn this subject and make them what we say in CodeChef “a better problem-solver in life”.
Nothing but a big salute to everyone behind Navgurukul and every teacher like Anup.
To know more about Navgurgukul, to hire these programming gems and to donate visit: https://navgurukul.org
PS: This a straight-from-the-heart write-up, so please excuse for any flow mix-up.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
