Rajan Kapoor's Ejaculation 2: Kolkata . . . Oh Calcutta! : Part 1. A Farewell ....

 It was best of times, it was worst of times. It was a love and hate relationship with Kolkata.  After being born, bred and buttered in Kolkata I spent my 16 years of my initial working life from 1982 - 1998 in Mumbai mostly with a brief 1 year in between at Kolkata in 1988-89. So in the real sense I came back to Kolkata after a decade or so having totally changed my life and career and become a teacher. I became a teacher because I felt happy teaching, unlike most teachers who have become a teacher because they couldn't get what they actually wanted to and took to teaching on a rebound. And it shows in their teaching. ( I will write on my life as a teacher in more details and frankly later in another ejaculation.  Oh by the way those who are squirming on my 'ejaculations' I suggest you go to a good dictionary and see the definition and usage of 'ejaculation' and not go by your limited/extraordinary  command of English!!)

Between 1998 -2000 there was only a single MBA Entrance coaching class of big size where I started teaching for the first time maths. And I hated it. Till now I would do classes on Communications, 'GDPI', English, 'GK' and a little of 'Maths' , because not only I was a 'talkative' teacher but these were my comfort zones. In Kolkata, the institute insisted that i also teach math for MBA entrances. I was reluctant, then tried and failed miserably initially. The owner insisted I was a engineer so I should be able to take it up. I realized my bread would come majorly from Maths as there were many math teachers available who would know more than me but could not teach effectively for CAT needs. I went to the drawing board and reinvented myself as a CAT math teacher but a talkative and a irreverent one. I thought this way the owner will stop insisting on my maths classes. To my horror I got accepted as a math teacher  too,  over the math types!

And by 2000, if I can be shameless, I was a successful 'legend'. My classes would overfill with students willing to stand in the corridor as there were no empty seats available. But I do  take credit that I taught Kolkata math teachers how to teach for a CAT class. The problem was my model of teaching was so weirdly my model that others couldn't adopt it mostly and in return mocked my ability. It didn't  matter as my students largely accepted including the good ones.

Then came other Coaching institutes including IMS. Vidur Kapoor started a small 'personalised' class. After 3 years in the first coaching institute I decided to shift to IMS in 2000 which was then a year old in Kolkata and finding its bearing . In own words of the IMS Kolkata managers their enrolments zoomed  on my joining. In a couple of years the original institute shut down.

The next 3 years were largely very satisfying teaching, and relishing my success and my students belief in me as they joined IIMs, XLRI, etc. The only problem of my life was the resentment the colleagues felt and therefore the troubles and loose talks they would do behind me which unfailingly became worse over the years as institutes became bigger and more in numbers. The new teachers copied my tricks, tips, methods and some even tried to teach me back!

It didn't help that I was a single person. I was subjected to not only bad-mouthing about my skills as a teacher but as a person. I believe that being a single person is the big curse anyone can have even in a 21-century India especially Kolkata.  As a single person I was not suppose to have a relationship especially if I was 40 plus. I must be a pervert!!! And I need not actually have a relationship, I would have it thrust on to me!!   As far I was concerned my life was a OPEN BOOK and I have always been proud of the fact that even though I had a different outlook to life than other 'committed'  40+ persons,  I was not a hypocrite. I was what I was and I had nothing to be ashamed of. Yet Kolkata, unlike Mumbai frightened me, by the volatile and intrusive nature of the people who would be just willing to speak, assume and act maliciously towards a person if he/she  happened to be a single.  His education, his intellect, his experience of a larger world than most of them didn't matter..... I feared the irrational and 'mob culture' which Kolkata many times displays maximum among all the Metros and had seen it happening on the streets.  The worst example which comes to my mind is the heinous murders of Ananda Margi Priests and Nuns on the Ballygunge Bridge. Kolkatans who pride themselves to be supposedly modern, civil and liberal have this as one the many shames they have heaped on self over the decades. And many keep mouthing the ".... What Bengal thinks Today, India Thinks Tomorrow..." bullshit very energetically!

And what I didn't know then in 2002,at the peak of my success, that I would face it sooner than later in my personal life.

....to be continued
 © Rajan Kapoor 2012