Can you write an article every single day of a year? Yes, 365 days without any gap? One man from Telangana has done it. Pranayraj Vangari has been working tirelessly to show the world how rich the southern Indian state’s history and culture is.
Pranayraj Vangari wrote an article every day for 365 days. Wikimedia Commons
This state hosts people from different cultures, with different languages and different religious beliefs. It’s an open art space offering authentic architecture, plastic art, and music.
So this man, Pranayraj, recently wrote an article on Telugu Wikipedia about Telengana’s culture, putting an end to a year-long challenge where he wrote a new Wikipedia article each day for 365 consecutive days.
Vangari first heard about Wikipedia’s ‘100wikidays challenge’ from fellow Telugu-language Wikipedians who have successfully completed it in the past. This encouraged him to accept the 100-day challenge. Vangari thought of making it more interesting and planned for a harder task.
“At first, I thought that 100wikidays [were] enough, but…on the 95th day of this challenge, I decided to take up the Wikiyear challenge,” Vangari said in an interview to Wikimedia Foundation.
The Telugu Wikipedia Community honoring Vangari (in blue shirt) for his work. Creative Commons
To dedicate himself for a full year was never easy. Sometimes he got so busy that he couldn’t dedicate even half an hour of his time for the day. He travels round the year for work, plus he got married after taking the challenge. But Vangari never stopped.
Vangari got married in February, but that was not a lame excuse for him to put aside his commitment for even a single day.
“I wrote an article on my wedding day,” he recalls, “and my wife took this opportunity to learn about the project and sign up. Our fellow Wikipedian Pavan Santhosh coined a term for that: Wiki Kalyanam (Wiki Marriage).”
Vangari has been an editor for Wikipedia since March 2013. So far, he has made over 85,000 edits for the Telugu Wikipedia and wrote more than 700 articles.
Such was his dedication to Wikipedia that even encouraged the community to select him as an administrator.
He uses his spare time at local editing workshops, giving new users the necessary tips and guidance, teaching them the basics of editing. Not only an avid Wikipedia member, Vangari also works as an assistant theatre director and is on the brink of finishing his M.Phil degree in theatre arts.