From Abject Poverty to Limca Book of Records - The Bicycle Guruji
“I don’t have a permanent address; only a permanent cycle that people can spot from far away.” This, however, is no ordinary bicycle. Covered with bright pictures from his numerous awareness campaigns, Aditya Kumar, the Bicycle Guru, rides on it for around sixty four kilometers every day carrying books for the slum children for the last twenty three years, imparting free education to them. “The weight of all the books has worn it down and knocked out a bolt or two over the years, but it has just completed touring all the 29 states in the last 45 months”. (Indian Express October 4, 2018)
Aditya Kumar was born forty seven years back in a poor family of Farukhabad near Lucknow . His father was a labourer and found it hard to support a big family. Aditya could not get enrolled in a school till he was thirteen. He wanted to study, but his father wanted him to work and earn an income. Aditya ran away from home and for a while lived on the streets, till he met a teacher who found his quest for education irresistible. The teacher helped him in education and finally Aditya graduated from the University of Kanpur in Science. After leaving the university Aditya started living on the railway platforms in Lucknow, often penniless and somehow surviving. That is when he decided that he had a duty to give back something to the society and just like he was helped by a Good Samaritan to get education, he should help others.
Aditya did not get married, nor sought a formal job. He had found the mission of his life in educating poor children, mostly from the slums. He visited slums, collected children not enrolled in schools and taught them basic Hindi, English and Mathematics. He had no regular source of income and lived on the help rendered by his friends. He has not built a house for himself. Since 1995 he has been imparting free education to poor children living in the slum areas of Lucknow. Thanks to his mission and zeal more than 6000 underprivileged children have got basic education and gone on to study in different schools and colleges. Aditya Kumar is justifiably proud in claiming that some of his students have been able to secure good jobs in private institutions and government departments.
Aditya has also used his bicycle to go from village to village and conduct mobile classes. When he visits the slums in the city he just parks his bicycle and starts an impromptu outdoor class. He enables the poor kids to acquire minimum proficiency in spoken Hindi, English and Maths so that they can join the regular schools.
On 12 January 2015, Aditya, the Bicycle Guruji started a journey from Lucknow on his bicycle to spread the message of Literacy in different parts of the country. Millions of impoverished children in the country have drawn inspiration from him. “I have traveled all over the country in the last 45 months and the more I traveled, the more I realized the importance of education in this country….. Most people I encounter have never been to a classroom. So they don’t know what they are missing out on or what school would feel like. Their parents also have never been to a school ever, so it is difficult for them to understand the importance of education. It is difficult to convince them, but once I do I make sure we keep in touch with them and help them in their educational journey” (Indian Express October 4, 2018)
In 2014 Aditya Kumar was honoured by Limca Book of Records for his extraordinary contribution to spread education through free service. He has also been conferred ‘NISHAN-E-IMAM HUSSAIN’ Award by the Governor of Uttar Pradesh for his service to the cause of education. A Documentary on him has been telecast in Discovery Channel. He has risen to an international celebrity status as ‘The Bicycle Guruji’. It is interesting to note that when the Limca Book of Records wanted to honour him, the Certificate had to be mailed to a friend’s postal address since Aditya Kumar has no fixed address being a peripatetic teacher all his life.
Aditya believes that it is illiteracy which is the mother of all social evils and the root cause of underdevelopment in our country. He started an Education Revolution to remove illiteracy and has travelled a long distance in that cause on a mere bicycle!
Here is to wish Aditya more strength in his legs to pedal the country into progress!
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