I was born in Gonda in 1977, and studied there till I graduated from Lal Bahadur Shastri University, Gonda, Uttar Pradesh with a Bachelor’s Degree in 1998. After this I did my Masters in Economics from Lucknow University and graduated in 2001.

After clearing my UGC-NET in 2002, I joined as a lecturer at Shiv Harsh Kisan PG College in Basti Uttar Pradesh. This was where I faced my biggest challenge.

My education up till now was all in English medium institutions and here I was in a college where I was asked to take classes in Hindi.

My students came from humble homes. Some of them could not afford textbooks. I bought hindi text books or borrowed them from the library, and began to study them myself. Then, I made notes for my students in Hindi.

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I realised how post-intermediate education in villages, even where there are private colleges functioning, is a huge challenge to students. It is made up of students whose parents couldn’t afford to send them off to cities.

I decided to shake things up a bit and decided to hold a national seminar on recession in a college that had never seen one. The year was 2010. I sent out a proposal to UGC and it was approved. Conducting this seminar was like getting my daughters married off! But the seminar ended up a hit and people appreciated it quite a lot.

While I was teaching in Shiv Harsh Kisan PG College in Basti Uttar Pradesh, I came to know that there was a vacancy in the economics department at Vidyant College in Lucknow. I applied and I have been working there since 2015.

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I did what I could at Basti and even in Lucknow I wanted to do besides just teaching. I started the Vivekananda Samta Foundation. Its first campaign was an awareness drive for girls called the “Wings Movement” in which we distributed sanitary pads. We also began a Hand Hygiene campaign even before COVID-19 pandemic. When the first lockdown was imposed, our foundation along with the Lucknow administration provided ration to about ten thousand households.

I enjoy teaching economics and when I have time, I accept invitations to be a panellist on television as an economics and political analyst.

Note: Manish Hindavi is currently an Associate Professor of Economics at Vidyant College, Lucknow University.

As told to Danish Iqbal, an intern with Gaon Connection. Translated by Mahima Gujjar.

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