This kid, Ravi is just about in his teens and sells peacock fans at Hanging Gardens (also known as Ferozeshah Mehta Gardens), Mumbai. Just like so many other kids in India, even he has never got a chance to go to school. That does not deter him from being enterprising in the job that he does. Everyday he meets tourist from different countries and sell fans to them using his USP, which is, speak to them in their local language !!.
Hear him speak Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Iranian, Israeli, English
The following video was taken a couple of years ago.
Such a amazing talent. Imagine if he too got a chance to go to school like you and me. Also notice his body language when he explains about hanging gardens. Awesome, aint it?. You may learn the language from someone else but the skill and confidence in presenting is something which you have to develop on your own.
Hope some NGO sees this talent and helps him from this hardship. Surely he deserves better than this.
I googled for more info about this kid. This is a compilation of what I found, though there is no way of verifying it.
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 tour guide business.
Ravi speaks nine languages conversationally – his regional native tongue plus 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.
His grandmother brought him to Mumbai from deep in rural India when he was 4 years old, to help the rest of the family survive because conditions were so desperate in his village.
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 local 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 guide 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
God Bless Him !!
