Kashmir icons don school notebooks
No more cartoon inspirations
Move over from Chhota Bheem, Ben10, Shinshan, Bollywood celebrities. Your kids will now have inspirations to draw from icons – Shah Faesal, Ruwaida Salaam, Mehraj Wadoo – of Jammu and Kashmir donning cover pages of their notebooks.
These local icons shall replace the Bollywood and cricket celebrities on cover pages of the exercise notebooks, which, in addition carry other handy information. The exercise notebooks of different variants are purely made in Kashmir by a local entrepreneur mentored and sponsored by the Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI).
Named as C-Copy, the exercise notebook carries photographs and a brief intro of achievers like IAS topper, Shah Faesal, Dr Mushtaq Chalkoo, IPS officer Ruveda Salam, international football players Mehraj-ud-din Wadoo and Ishfaq Ahmed. The C-Copy also carries other useful information for students, teachers and parents as well.
The idea came to Mudasir Iqbal Khan, when he was driving in Jawahar Nagar area of Srinagar city and saw few students struggling to cross the road. “They were holding each others hand and trying to cross the road but due to continuous traffic flow they were not able to do so. Seeing their helplessness I stepped out of my car and made them cross the road. When I came back I started thinking about the incident and its probable solution (s),” says Khan.
He arranged used corrugated boxes to use them as placards with ‘STOP’ written on them. As an experiment the placards were given to some students and asked to use it near a traffic junction to cross the road. The idea worked and the students were able to cross the road with ease.
“I kept thinking about how to make it easy for students to use the sign and at the same time how to make it portable. That is where the idea of using a notebook came to my mind, since notebook is a student’s companion. I travelled to Delhi, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, and other places to see whether there is a concept of using a notebook as placard,” Khan says adding no such concept was in use anywhere in India.
In foreign and some parts of India, there is ‘Lollipop’ who stops traffic for students to cross the road. Lollipop is a crossing guard or school road patrol who is normally stationed on busy roadways to aid pedestrians.
Khan decided design a notebook for everyone and started the process. He added one more thing to it; and this was one is for victims of eve-teasing at places like bus stops, tuition centers, schools, colleges, public transport etc. So he added ‘HELP’ sign as well which girls could use to seek help without actually saying anything in case of any trouble.
The concept is copy right and Khan worked hard to get it. The colors used in designing the cover page have been chosen properly to ensure that it is visible even in dark.
Khan is happy with the humble beginning and seeks cooperation from people. “I am not an MNC but just a starter. The quality of my product may be just 60 per cent as compared to others. I promise to give 100 per cent if support of all sorts is provided,” Khan says.
