Mumbai: He went viral on the Internet as the Lingo Kid and has been described as amazing, talented and incredible for his ability to speak more than a dozen languages, but the young man who has been selling peacock-feather fans to tourists for a decade now regrets that he never went to school.
Ravi Chikaliya continues to sell these fans made by his grandmother, which he calls “Indian air conditioner”, to smiling tourists at Hanging Gardens, atop Malabar Hill, a plush locality in South Mumbai, wooing them with his flair for languages.
Hailing from Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district, Chikaliya tells Gulf News: “I may be 20 or 21”.
He still draws plenty of admiration for his humour, perseverance and pleasant character and says he took to selling the feathered fans to support his poor parents and grandmother.
A keen listener, Chikaliya says: “I learnt through listening to sounds of different languages like the way we know it’s a crow when we hear cawing noises and it’s a parrot when screeching sounds are heard.”
He is best at English, which he speaks fluently.
Ever since a foreign tourist — who met Chikaliya in 2005 and again on another trip to India — uploaded a video of the salesman talking in English, Hindi, Gujarati, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Persian, Japanese, Chinese and Japanese, he became an instant sensation on the net.
As a child, he enthusiastically spoke to curious visitors and sometimes journalists, his sales talk fetching him customers, many of who were amused and pleased to be able to bargain in their own language.
An Ahmedabad-based organisation even took him to that city to speak before an audience that admired him. “They paid me some money. It was a good experience but later I was back to my Mumbai business of hawking fans.”
Typical for someone as intelligent as he is, he has begun feeling the frustration of being caught in a rut.
“I want to do something with my life. I have been asking municipal authorities who manage this garden to just give me a small stall where I can sell my wares and start a small business.”
A basic school education is mandatory for any government job and he regrets not listening to his parents who, despite eking out a living from selling garam masala (spices) on the streets, insisted that he go to school.
But Ravi thought the quality of education at government schools was low and he could learn a lot of money on the roads.
Despite his linguistic ‘gift’, he cannot make any headway in life, he laments.
“I make about Rs500 (Dh29) a day and almost all of it goes in running my house and family. Business too is bad these days.”
However, never one to give up, Chikaliya has sought a “good South Indian teacher” for himself near the Milan subway, Santa Cruz.
“I’ve already learnt the alphabets and spelling in three months and picking up English, Maths and writing,” he says. “It would be great if Teach India supports me in my endeavour to learn English even better. All I want is to do better in life.”
