Sanjay Parmar has built a model of an electric car.
Look no further if you are looking for an ‘Ishaan’ (of the movie Tare Zameen Par) in real life. You can see one in 14-year-old Sanjay Parmar, a dyslexic teenager from Ahmedabad’s Rama-Pir-Tekra slums, who has just completed the working model of an electric car that he designed and started building from junk on Sunday. Parmar’s car runs on a rechargeable battery.
This gifted boy may one day become the city’s own ‘slumdog millionaire’ for he aspires to study at NID to become an automobile designer.
“Why don’t we make cars that run only on solar power?” asks Parmar, who has been ‘adopted’ by Visamo Kids Foundation. The foundation takes care of gifted dyslexic children from poor families. Parmar’s electric car has cost him nothing to build as he has built it almost entirely out of junk. Other than the 6 volt rechargeable battery that was given to him by his teacher, the wheels of the car, its chassis, body, seat, and its steering wheel, are all built from used material. He found all the material he needed among the household junk of the Visamo Kids Foundation’s foster home where he lives.
When he began building the car on Sunday, he just had a battery and a motor. However, he soon found a wooden plank in the junk which he decided to use for the car’s chassis. He also found thermocol sheets for the car’s body and aluminium wrapping for use as cover foil.
The junk heap also had plastic wheels that once belonged to children’s tricycles. Parmar decided to use them for his car. After two days of sustained work, Parmar’s single-seater open-roof car was shining and ready.
To explain how the model works, Parmar drew a sketch on a piece of paper and showed how he has placed the battery under the front hood of the car, and how he has connected it to the motor which, in turn, is attached to the rear wheels to make the car move.
Parmar’s powers of innovation and his amazing capacity for out-of-the-box thinking are evident from the model he has built. When someone pointed out to him that the steering was T-shaped, Parmar said, “But it serves the same purpose.” This gifted child is passionate about his dreams. “I want to study at NID and become an automobile designer,” Parmar said. “I want to design solar cars out of used material. My cars will never need refuelling.”
Parmar was born in the Rama-Pir-Tekra slums in Vadaj. His father works as a driver.
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