Pushing for a cause, tirelessly

Domalguda:  This is the story of a die-hard do-gooder, Sadiq Ali, who has a single-point mission: taking books to the people, in a pushcart and spreading awareness. 

His unique three-year  endeavour – Topudu Bandi- is now aiming to cross the border to roll across to neighbouring Chhattisgarh, once the current 31st Hyderabad Book Fair is over. His route, to be taken up from February 1 would be Yellandu, Kothagudem, Bhadrachalam, V R Puram before it touches the destination.

Speaking to The Hans India Sadiq Ali said, “People want to read books but are not able to reach them so to reach out the people I started with Topudu Bandi. As like vendors sell fruits and vegetables, I started selling books in Hyderabad on pushcart three years ago and later on started moving towards villages as there are many people in villages who want to study and read books but do not have accessibility”

Ali has travelled to various villages on his pushcart and has distributed books to the school students free of cost, and has received a great response from the people especially book lovers. The profit he earns at Book fair is again used for buying books, he informed.

Explaining about his programmes Ali said that in the year 2015 he travelled around 350 kilometres in various parts of the city with the aim to educate people and reach out to the book lovers. He said that later in 2016 I started with a program called “Palle ku Prema tho Topudu Bandi” during which he traveled 1,000 km for 100 days and distributed books to people.

 “After reaching out people in city and various villages, I wanted to reach the children living in slum areas for which I travelling to 26 slums areas of Warangal with the name of ‘Basti lo Pustala Panduga’. With the tag line of ‘Adavi Tali ki Akshara Thoranam’ I even travelled to forest areas where SC, ST people reside for 35 days. I did 250 km, visited 75 school libraries and reached around 12,000 students.
 
Speaking about his experience at the Hyderabad Book Fair Sadiq Ali said that it has been a great experience at the book fair. “ Last year I earned a profit of Rs 1.5 lakh and this year my target is to reach Rs 3 lakh” he adds.