Srinagar: Ghulam Mohammad Mir of Tangpaw, Saagam of South Kashmir's Anantnag district too like many others across the valley, had a bitter experience of early nineties when crackdowns and army patrols was a fearsome experience. He was severely beaten up by troopers for not being prompt to respond to the frightening midnight knock. Mir had never been to School but the constant fear of missing a knock and paying for it led him to invent what he proudly calls Singing Lantern'.
Scientists from Ahmedabad, Gujarat were here to help shape his project - a traditional Kashmiri kerosene lantern that has features of radio, alarm, mobile charger and light-n-sound siren to hear the door knock. Mir has bigger dreams developing an Rs 1.5 lakh helicopter.
"When turmoil was at peak in the Kashmir, troopers would barge in our houses, often not letting us even clothe ourselves,'' reminisces Mir, saying his lantern has a siren with 200-metre range.
The lantern is charged by electricity or solar lighting and lasts for at least 10 days. The poverty-stricken Mir had by now become a household name in his area and soon the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) Ahmadabad was here to tap his invention.
He was honoured at the Government Degree College Islamabad with the certificate of achievement by NIF's founding member Anil Kumar Gupta and presented with a Kashmiri shawl.
Later, he was also awarded at Ahmadabad and his work undertaken by the Grass Root Innovation and Augmentation Centre (GIAN) of Kashmir University, which will soon offer him International Patent License (IPL).
"Mir's idea is really working, especially for the village people who work in their fields without any entertainment. People from his area and even outside State have really licked it," Chairman KU's GIAN Cell, Prof Ghulam Mohuiddin Bhat told Agence India Press.
"NIF has approved his ideas and he will get his IPL very soon, which would not only benefit Mir but whole of our Valley," he adds.
God has bestowed Mir with skill to handle any work, shoe repair, barber, tailor, carpenter, mason, electrician, handicrafts. He does all this to "create a mansion" for his wife, his unmarried sister (60) and his two children.
The family has gone through very hard times. He has seen his sister shouldering all the responsibilities to feed them when Mir was too young. "My sister sacrificed her life for us," says Mir, his eyes moistening.
By now a household name in South Kashmir, Mir nurtures another dream: to create a small helicopter costing barely Rs 1.5 lakh, again for the common man. He is also experimenting with seeds and has successfully made the cultivation of cabbage possible using some chemicals. (AIP)
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