Off the Beaten Path…

In 1991, 22 students passed out of the then IIT Madras’s Metallurgy class. Murali was one of them.

One of three children born to a Lecturer of Philosophy father and a housewife mother, Murali studied at a State Board school in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, and though a good student, didn’t really aspire to go to any premier higher education institution in the country to a point where he wanted to slog at school. However, when he completed his Intermediate, seeing his brother’s friend prepare for an entrance exam to the Indian Institute of Technology, Murali too was motivated to prepare for the test.

At the end of his course, he considered himself lucky to have been picked up by the Bhilai Steel Plant for an internship. Soon however, restlessness set in, and in 9 months Murali knew he was not cut out for a nine-to-five white-collar career. Deep down, he felt his calling was in design.

After unsuccessful attempts to crack the entrance tests of National Institute of Design and the Industrial Design Centre, he landed in Bangalore. The year was 1993.

The MAYA Connect

He wandered into the office of MAYA (Movement for Alternatives and Youth Awareness, Maya – India (mayaindia.org)), a two-year-old not-for-profit, working with youth on the street to explore possibilities of gainfully employing them through counselling workshops called Beat the Street. The young founders of MAYA were more than happy to include the equally young Murali in their team as a volunteer. A stint of volunteering that lasted 5-6 months ended in Murali deciding to stay on as an employee of MAYA.

There has been no looking back ever since. Murali matched steps with the moves of MAYA – from counselling youth on the street to finding placements for them, to offering vocational training in making stationery, printing, carpentry, manufacturing steel sheets, and campaigns against child labour.

In the last decade, Murali has been finally able to do where his heart lay as a youth – design. Murali designs toys and educational aids for MAYA’s early intervention programs.

Made from child-friendly materials, these cost-effective and affordable, easy-to-use kits include instruction manuals.

As part of their livelihood initiative,MAYA strives to create opportunities for people to live in dignity and to become self-reliant. In this mission, MAYA has actively supported the handicraft cluster of Channapatna, Ramanagara District, Karnataka, India, for the past two decades. Channapatna has been home to the lacware craft practiced in the region for over 200 years. It made sense for MAYA to create sustainable employment in an area of strength of the locals.

From hereon…

Inquire about the duration of Murali’s tenure at MAYA or his experience in designing toys, or any other aspect of his life involving time, and he consistently responds, “I struggle with recalling dates.” Because of the space he is given to do what he wants, he says he enjoys his work at MAYA so much that “time seems compressed”. The experiences he has had at MAYA remain so vivid in his memory that they feel as though they transpired just recently.

For a year now, Murali has also been contributing to teacher training programs of MAYA, designing activities. These specifically target classes 7, 8, 9, and encompass a concept referred to as ‘Essence of Engineering’, by alternative educationists. Murali eventually aims to extend these programs, through MAYA’s rural intervention programs, to rural schools. Despite all his contributions through the years of his association at MAYA, Murali refuses to concede that he has been an invaluable resource for the organization. He says, “Nothing here is growing because of me. I just do what I want to do and enjoy doing. Nobody so far has bet big on me for this organization to grow.”

Seroja Manoj works at a not-for-profit. She is a dedicated and engaged member of various civil society organizations. She closely monitors ongoing socio-political events and actively works to raise awareness, with the aim of driving positive societal transformation.