"Are you Stuck? Congrats!"
A Conversation with The Ever Curious Osama Manzar on His Journey of Learning
“You’ve gone out to travel but haven’t put that into a process. In the sense that I will travel for four days, eat two times a day, make sure tickets are in place, etc. There is a whole lot to list. You will do all this, which is a part of the process, but you will not do it as a process. But, for me, that is learning- when I put that entire experience into a process.”
The journey and methods of how people learn have always fascinated me. This interest has led me to some of the rich conversations in my life. One such is with Osama Manzar, a traveller of more than 10,000 villages across India, the founder of the Digital Empowerment Foundation and resident and curator of various learning spaces.
Osama has recently been a part of the Agamishaala that was held in the mountains of Ranikhet. There, he had penned a journal in his beautiful calligraphy, words, thoughts, and art that captured how he sees the space, his learnings, his feelings, and the people, which almost became the map that guided our conversation.
The journal, he says, captures his process of visual thinking. “I started thinking that everything that you are discussing or doing, if you put it into a visual mode, then the articulation becomes better, short and divine. So that is the exercise put into the journal.” He mentions that he will be doing the same for our conversation and had indeed sat for the conversation with sketch pens in hand and a blank canvas bag (picture at the start of the article).
“Learning is not a skill. It is an approach or attitude- driven by your heart and your humility” is what it takes to be a Lifelong learner, says Osama. He continues, “So let’s say during the interaction between you and me, there is a lot of age difference, but that doesn’t mean I cannot learn from you. But if you look at the physicality of learning, it will look like, ‘Oh, you have so much experience, and she doesn’t, so obviously she is going to learn, and you are going to be the teacher’. But that is not the case. Learning can take place at any moment, anytime, anywhere, in any situation. What I am saying is one cannot learn just by thinking that one knows more than anybody else or one is interacting where they can only give.” In this context, he also mentions that more than any learning space, his children and young people have been his most significant source of learning. Children don’t plan; they think in ways that have not been boxed or pre-designed and have a natural flow and creativity that forms a great scope for growth.
Osama insists that nothing is wasted once one has clarity on why they are pursuing their learning journey. Even if the goal is as simple as being inspired to be better and having that willingness to be in a constant process of wanting to understand, this approach of humility towards learning is also what allows us to be able to stay silent and listen. How often does one think about keeping silent or doing nothing as a learning medium? “So, let’s say, if we take the example of Agamishaala, we were around twenty people. And we participated in individual reflections. So in that reflection, I am learning that the longer I am silent, the more I am learning from the reflection of others. When you wait for long in silence and listen, there is a possibility that somebody would have shared the same reflection as you might be thinking, so then by silence, you have done everything, so you just have to say ‘ditto’. I don’t need to repeat. But yes, we should also have the clarity that if what you want to say has not been spoken, toh zaroor boliye (then, definitely say). If that is the attitude, then in this one single moment, there are five learnings– Learning how to be patient, how to allow others to speak, to listen, to not repeat or say the same thing, and learning how to give rather than take.”
We continue this train of conversation when we talk about the practice of embodiment at Shaala, where one tunes into the data and wisdom in one’s own body, which he calls ‘a zabardast (great) learning experience’.
“We had to design and plan our Village (an embodiment practise at Shaala, Manish Srivasatava, the Chief Facilitator, facilitates). It was clearly getting projected that someone was a bureaucrat, someone was running a city, someone was responsible for spreading pollution, someone was talking about building peace and love, someone was doing business, entrepreneurship, whatever, and all of this came out through embodiment.” He believes it is a great way of internalising the learning. One can learn faster and better by placing themselves in the shoes of the various players in a governance structure and embodying their work and its challenges. He feels this would be a great value addition to learning in educational institutes and even within different organisations.
Challenges, Osama says, are great moments of learning. There is learning even in situations where one feels stuck. One of his journal pages has these very curious words penned, “Are you stuck, congrats!” I ask what made him write that.
“...What I am saying is if you firmly believe that whatever happens is happening for good, then your mind is ready to go further and become hopeful. Even in my journey, there has been an era of darkness, but even then, at that time, I was never negative. So that’s why everywhere I feel that you are stuck, so congrats, that means you need to be stuck. You need to introspect, you need to listen, and you need to hear yourself. That is very important. Do you know how to listen to yourself?”
So, how does one listen to themselves, I ask.
He instantly asks me my age. Curious, I tell him. He goes on to say people my age come to him a lot, confused about their future, career and the direction they should take. He mentions that there are always two voices around us, one very loud and clear; and the other subtle but just as insistent. It is the outer voice that is so loud and clear and visually very rich and attractive, but the inner voice that gives you peace, tranquillity and everything. Osama describes the ‘outer voice’ as the voice of the people around you that tell you what you should be doing, how you should be living, etc.; the inner voice talks just to you. “Ye inner voice aapke mann ko bolti hai, aapko bolti hai, lekin aap agar usko nhi sunenge to woh loudness uska aapko samajh nhi aayega, but agar aap usko baar baar sunenge, to sirf ussi ki hi sunenge.” (This inner voice just talks to your mind, but if you don’t listen, you won’t understand its loudness, but if you do listen, you will only listen to it).
However, he admits that listening to yourself is not easy. The cacophony of the outside world may drown out the voice, and your inner voice may force you to confront unpleasant truths. “But,” he continues, “If we say agree that we do not like what our inner voice says, if it is not loud and clear, if it doesn’t suit you, then why do we like the words of Rumi, why do we like the words of our scriptures or folk music, why do we like the music from someone whose language we don’t understand, you know?”
Nature can help, though. Like what made his learning experience in Ranikhet special, “... there was a speechless curation here… if you come here, then aate hi aapka gussa thanda ho jayega (your anger calms down automatically), you won’t speak too much, you’ll see, you’ll listen, you’ll breathe, and you’ll feel, creating an ideal state of learning with an open mind.”
(Osama’s captures of moments from Agamishaala ’23 ©Osama Manzar)