This is Brij Kothari’s whole idea. To give the people an opportunity to read and supplement their capacity to learn. An alumni of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Brij is a communication specialist. His Same Language Subtitling (SLS) programme subtitles film songs on the TV in the language they speak, Hindi, Gujarati, or Bengali, reproduced verbatim in a synchronised manner. That means what you see (text) is what you hear (audio). The idea is to make entertainment a tool to take forward reading habits beyond the class-room. The main target is the semi-literate, or those familiar with the alphabets but who do not get an opportunity to read beyond the class-room.

Mistress of Spice To catch a star Jungle songs Lady with the Potter wand Straddling two worlds Bollywood calling We speak like that only Sing a song for literacy Looking back in wonder Perfect Balance His own Ramayanan

Brij’s innovative idea of combining entertainment with the literacy drive has won him many accolades. Recently, he was in Kolkata as an Ashoka Fellow to participate in a workshop with other Fellows from the country and abroad. Ashoka Fellows are selected for their leadership qualities and innovative ideas by the US-based Ashoka Foundation. For his SLS idea, Brij was also adjudged a winner at the Development Marketplace, the World Bank’s Innovation Award which gave him enough funds to implement this programme nationally. The innovation has been recognised by the Institute for Social Inventions, UK and the Tech Museum of Innovations, San Jose, USA.

The idea of SLS came to Brij while studying in the US. “When I was a graduate student at Cornell University, I was learning Spanish because my work also involved researching a lot in South America. I used to watch Spanish films to learn Spanish; they all had English subtitles. Suddenly, one day I exclaimed, why not Spanish films with Spanish sub-titles? If you want to learn the language it’s a better subtitling method. Adding text to the audio, you can actually follow what the native speaker says. Then I thought, hey, why not add subtitle to the popular film songs in India and the non-literates will become literate!”

This casual comment later took shape when he returned to teach at the Centre for Educational Innovation, IIM-A. The country has a huge population of semi-literates; on the other hand, today even in rural areas they have access to Doordarshan programmes on the TV. Film song oriented programmes like Chitrahaar (defunct since but similar programmes are there) are very popular across the country. “Let’s accept the reality, children, adults would watch the telly for entertainment, literate or not. Why not then use this resource to get some educational benefit out of it? Those children who have alphabet training will grow up reading because their reading gets reinforced through this method. While researching, we went to villages, railway stations, etc. and everywhere the people loved the idea,” Brij recalls.

The Doordarshan Kendra of Ahmedabad was approached to implement. The initial reaction was that it would spoil the programme. But later, Doordarshan made a policy decision vetting it and implemented it first in 1999. Subsequent research showed that SLS programmes’ ratings went up by 15 per cent. Also, those who watched the programme learnt reading much faster than those who did not watch it. Nationally too the SLS has found favour and the pilot projects in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were launched in 2002. Brij informs that soon SLS will be a feature in all the regional language channels. “Our target are early literates, but even literates like to watch. People like to sing along, they want to know the words, and so they read the words.”

It has been demonstrated that it is cost-effective too. It needs just installing the software while it has a massive recall effect. In fact, Brij has calculated that it comes to less than one paisa per person per year to make the person read. For example, Sunday morning’s Rangoli, a prime-time programme, has a 100 million early-literates audience.

Brij has big ideas for SLS. “We want to take it internationally, even to the US. There are pockets in that country where there is a reading problem among some immigrant groups. We can use their popular songs in the same way. In fact, it can be used anywhere in the world. We’ve formed a group called Planet Read, which will take forward the idea to other countries.”

There are other ideas too. Like Bookbox, a new story-telling project to make children read more. The stories can be from anywhere in the world. The same visuals have translation in the local language. An English story can have translation in Bengali script , for instance, while in the background the story-teller narrates the story in Bengali. Some stories are available in Chinese too. “Books are quite costly, we can create a book for the screen. The whole idea is that children round the world can have good stories of their own. A Brazilian story can be told in Hindi, for example. Why should we in India only watch Disney cartoons, read only European fairy tales ? Children’s stories coming out of Africa can be as interesting. Four stories are already available online” the innovator says.

The third project is to draw on the rich bank of Indian folk songs to be used to spread the message of literacy or any such relevant topic. There are two models, translation and transcreation. “To start with, we will take folk songs of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.” These songs will be available as downloads on the internet.

For Brij Kothari who does not have a fixed address as he commutes to and fro between his homeland and the US, there is no border between languages and stories too. It is universal but depends on the way the story is told. His way is to use the modern tools of technology and visual medium to build a bridge between the old and new, and help people step forward for universal literacy