Share ideas over a cuppa

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A 20-something student of journalism, Nihal Parashar has very strong views about the education system of India. He just doesn’t like the concept of following the same curriculum over and over again. He believes knowledge can’t be granted by following a set rule and inflow of new ideas is essential. That’s why Nihal advocates informal interactions which lead to a two-way flow of information.

“We are not receptive when it comes to classroom teaching. Despite many changes, the system of teaching remains almost the same,” he says.
Nihal is now taking individual steps, alongwith support from friends, to bring in a change. He says that while in college, he came across professors who could talk about a lot many important things than just books they were supposed to teach. “But somehow they couldn’t share the additional knowledge as they were restricted to classroom teaching. Like, a teacher could have told us a lot about what happened in England that provoked Charles Dickens to write certain things, but since it isn’t a part of syllabus, the teacher didn’t speak much about it,” he says.
In the quest to know more from people who he feels have a lot to share, Nihal has initiated an interesting movement called “Coffee, Chai aur Baat Cheet”. He calls people from educational and cultural backgrounds for a chat with those interested in talking to them. Recently, historian Dilip Simeon was called to talk to a bunch of youngsters in an informal setting. “He has inspired me and many others like me greatly. In fact his life has been so fascinating that filmmaker Sudhir Mishra made the film Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi on his life,” says Nihal, who plans to call Anshuman Singh, an English professor at Delhi University and filmmaker Yusuf Saeed, who has got critical acclaims for his film Khayal Darpan, for interactions.
And this is not all that keeps Nihal on his toes. He has been conducting sessions titled “Mulaqaat” for the last two years, where people interested in poetry meet. “It started with 10-12 youngsters and now when there’s a Mulaqaat session, more than 50 poetry lovers participate,” he says.
The success of these initiatives has given him the courage to take up more such concepts. In his next — “Kitaab aur Aap” — Nihal calls out to book lovers. “People can exchange books with each other. They can talk about books they read or want to read. It’s all about conversations revolving around books,” he says.