Chapter 15: Junior College (SY).

It was in this class that I met and fell in love with my first “Girl friend”, For some reason it felt right and after months of deliberate postponement, I finally managed to gather my guts and ask her out, Which she graciously accepted.

I was a happy teen.

Days went on… and as most of you would know, being in Love makes you forget all your troubles, and u perform well, that was my case when I was in 12^th. My parents or my relatives for that matter never got an air of what’s going on at college.

The relationship was disclosed to a few close knit friends who would help us call each other during weekends. If she wanted to call me she would ask “Rajesh” to dial the number who would pass on the receiver to her after I am on the line, alternatively “shruts” was my aide.

My cousin and me joined the same coaching classes by the name Alpha, in mulund, the reason for both of us joining the same was that the proprietor was a client of my uncle B and gave us a hefty discount on the course fee. (My uncle B was the most influential person when it came to my studies, as I really doubt I would have gotten this far had it not been for him, would be in all probability rolling Bidis had he not gotten me a seat at kelkars)

Rajesh was there too, so was shruts and my gal (would not mention her name, for we are no longer a couple, as for Rajesh and shruts, I would like to meet them and hence the mention) and we all breezed SYJC.

I used to sport a mustache until I cleared my engineering, I also used to wear numbered spectacles, the shape and power varying year after year, and in my 12^th standard I wore the classical Oval, to accentuate my Gandhian look and was immediately nicknamed Gandhi by one of our chemistry professors at Alpha.

Was made a scapegoat a million times, but I did not mind being one, for two specific reasons, it helped me in concentrate in my studies and it made people laugh. For some reason I think the professor too had a soft corner for me, never actually got to verify the same, but I am dead sure that he did.

I managed to pass the 12^th standard with 87 % aggregate, and my cousin did it with a lower aggregate but with a higher PCM score (97%) he scored perfect in 2 subjects for which he was showered with accolades by the classes, as for me I got an invite to the accolade program, clapped while my brother accepted his trophy and was contented with free food and drinks.

We had a gap of around 3 months between the time we gave our 12^th exams and the declaration of the results, during which I joined as an Office assistant at “Students academy” a coaching classed based out of Bhandup (this was my first paid job, true that I got the paychecks in the name of my dad, it was still something that I could do for my family plus it felt right) to keep myself occupied and earn along the while. My brother as I was made aware… prepared for his IIT entrance, gave it and flunked.

The admission processes for the technical studies (BE and MBBS) were revised and was supposed to include an All India entrance tests starting year 2002, so I was preparing for my Pre Medical entrance while attending to the daily work, at students academy.

My primary work at students academy was to open the classes at 7:00 am, allocate classrooms based on attendance, handle enquiries for admissions, guide prospective students and convert them, plan for examinations, co ordinate supervision, and correct answer papers. Shortly put, I was a dependable one man army that the proprietors at Students academy had, and they were happy with me, which clearly showed in the checks that were made out for me, I would always get 0.50 paise more than any invigilator that roughly translated to an excess of about 400 Rs every month in my pay check. My salary for the office assistant part was a cool 1700 Rs and my monthly take over inclusive of perks amounted to 2300 Rs. My parents were happy with the extra cash and I was occupied and had loose cash that I could spend on my babe.

My work would end at 2:00 pm, which got extended at the last month to 7:00 pm and I was paid an additional 500 as salary. So in the two months that I worked with students I earned a cool sum of 6500 Rs.

It was not the money that enticed me to take up the job, money was one of the reason, but the real reason was that I loved to teach and here I got an opportunity to explore the option, I was not allowed to teach students mainstream, that was the pros job, but what I got to do was to handle “Study Hours” which are generally late night or early morning open-to-all sessions where students can come to the classes and study in a disturbance free environment, and get their queries addressed to immediately. The challenge involved were, you need to be proficient in all the subjects across all standards. I faced it well, at least to my satisfaction.

One important lesson that I carried forward from my experience at students is to always get my doubts clarified.

In an informal session with the students, I casually asked them if they were not afraid to approach the teachers with their doubts (which I used to, I would rather clarify my doubts through a friend than a teacher) to which the reply that I got was “We pay a hefty amount for getting coached, so we better get the max out while we can”, that attitude of my students stuck with me when I entered engineering and not even a single professor was spared of my doubts (all valid ones and never to test the professors knowledge on the subject)