A Story Of A Chanderi Designer

Meet Rahul. He has just completed his education and has been associated with Chanderiyaan since its beginning. Our family member Farooqh interacted with him on his experience with Chanderiyaan! Where were you engaged before coming in contact with Chanderiyaan? Share with us your dreams and aspirations? I was a student that time and had a passion to learn computers with a vision to excel in computer education with a dream of working in the field of computers only. How did you get to know about Chanderiyaan, and what did you learn from the organization? Chanderiyaan initiated a survey before its formation, where they discussed about our interests in computer and digital education. Consequently in 2009, Chanderiyaan started its operations but due to some constraints, I was unable to participate in their computer education program that time. But then after 6 months, the organization initiated Computer designing training in Raj Mahal, Chanderi and that is when I got myself associated with Chanderiyaan. I was provided half an hour of theory classes and one and a half hour of practical knowledge and hands-on experience. Gradually, I learnt designing and this was my first interaction with Chanderiyaan as an organization. What were the major benefits that you derived from your learnings and what do you expect Chanderiyaan to do for you and the community in future? Post my design training with Chanderiyaan, I started making designs for master weavers and other weavers of Chanderi. I used to visit them at their shops, collect their designs and create them digitally. This was my first entrepreneurial experience as I was independent, learning as well as earning through my own skills and expertise. I cherish that day when people in my community refered to me as “Chanderi Designer Saheb”. But gradually I started getting bored of the regular design stuff and an urge for something new was there continuously. Fortunately, some days later, Chanderiyaan again initiated a computer training program on CCC. I spent my next 3 months learning this course and now I am well versed with basic WORD, EXCEL and POWERPOINT commands and operations. Most importantly, It was not the learnings of computer, but an aspiration of learning something new that I can further pass on to my friends and juniors, which I learnt from my experience with Chanderiyaan. How are you planning to utilize your skills and what do you aspire to be an asset for the Chanderi weavers’ community? Chanderiyaan is a very good platform for young enthusiasts such as me. I am focussed on my ambition that down the line, I would be encouraging children to focus on computer education as it is the need of an hour. The designs that used to take 8-9 days manually, are now prepared within 2 hours digitally. IT is such a big leap and fortunately I got the opportunity to contribute in this. Certainly, computer education would be an emergent skill in Chanderi in coming future with initiatives such as Chanderiyaan. Currently, Rahul works with Chanderiyaan as a design assistant and also provides significant contribution in database management and other computer related applications.