flunking a year in graduation and becoming rich teaching same time

Photo by David Kovalenko on Unsplash

I’ve struggled with studies all my schooling years. Never was I good enough, no matter how hard I tried. Also, being the average in class was my safe spot. Never wanted to be noticed by anyone, let alone the teachers. My performance was same in sports too. I did pretty well with drawing though. Always. But that didn’t count ever. Obviously. Fast forward to end of schooling, after tremendous efforts and ton of failures, I got into engineering. My relationship with performance remained same here too. I would fail in 2 of every 5 subjects per semester. With each passing semester I would thus accumulate more failed subjects and have 5+3, or 5+1+2, or some such funny total of papers to clear. By 2nd year end, I had failed in 1 subject enough times to suffer a year back. A year loss, which meant I could not attend college for that year. Meaning all my batch-mates would become my seniors and my juniors will become class-mates by the time I joined back. Meaning the 4 year graduation torture will last for 5 now.

I was destroyed, embarrassed and ashamed of myself. The subject that flunked my year was math. I was helped by batch-mates and juniors to learn every chapter better. Its a terrible thought to be unable to participate in normal college life and see everyone pass by. Thus poured every ounce of effort that I could possibly squeeze. But still failed. There I was, hundreds of miles away from home, away from parents, left with nothing to look forward to, now wondering how to hold myself together. This was the early 2000s. I didn’t know what depression meant or if such a thing existed. I don’t think it was even a known term for general public. But I’m pretty sure I was battling depression. Thankfully, I didn’t have any suicidal or sadistic tendencies. But I had to battle loneliness, extreme self-judgement and shame for 5 months. Exams returned. I cleared the leftovers, including the one that killed my year. I was living alone in a rented room at a kind old couple’s bungalow and didn’t find it healthy idea to continue with same loneliness for another 6 months. Thus shifted with my junior batch at a private hostel. Thought of surrounding myself with people; if possible people whom I liked or those who liked me. Luckily I had this bunch.

Life was moving unbearably slow. Another 5 months scrapped by, the next semester exam arrived. Everybody started studying again, me included. And a pair of boys appeared with a request that I was commonly asked for. They asked me to teach Engineering drawing (E.D.), also called as Engineering graphics. You may call it the Godfather of Geometry. It is the foundation subject of a huge list of industrial disciplines like Architecture, Vehicle design, Machine design or designing anything that you use, from a phone in your hand to the house you live in.

About ED and students: Its a subject of imagination and visualization. There is a tiny set of rules that you need to remember and the rest is all your imagination power. As we all know, most of our schooling is to memorize syllabus books, mug up answers of frequently asked questions and puke it out examination paper. ED is a fresh break in comparison. Like, a simple question of ED would be to draw a brick. Draw as it would appear when looking from top, or front, or side. If its kept flat on a surface, all the 3 views will be a plain rectangle. Right? Another question would be: a pyramid is cut from middle. Draw how it would look from front, side or top. Based on, at which angle the pyramid is placed in a 3D space, the angle at which it is cut, the shape of base (square pyramid or pentagonal pyramid etc), etc. the answer would vary immensely. Plus, this is not free hand drawing. The measurements of pyramid given in question has to be followed and you’ve to derive exact sizes of cut and uncut areas and so on. Hope you got the idea. The engineering syllabus also covers isometric drawing, which is nothing but 3D view drawn on a paper. In other words, isometric drawing is doodling with precise measurements. E.D. drives kids bonkers. A considerable chunk fall prey to year loss (or semester loss, depending on university rules) because of this subject.

About my unity with E.D. : I got introduced to it in 11th grade. Lucky that our school had it as an optional subject. Most schools didn’t have because of shortage of teachers in that subject. Our teacher was just a place holder. His lectures were evenly sprinkled with mistakes. But I learnt everything perfectly well from the very first lecture on. I could even notice the mistakes he made. For next 2 years it was my favorite subject. What’s interesting is that I didn’t even refer the course book. I never had to! It may sound unbelievable, but I never held a book of E.D. to learn. Every rule that the teacher taught in class was enough. And that to me, is really fascinating. I’m not trying to boast at all. To this date, I’m in awe as to how this could be possible. That I was pathetic in every other subject from grade 1 till the very end. But for a subject that was so unique and totally new, I didn’t even need to open the textbook once!? Was it my interest in drawing? Or the answer lies in the simplicity of approach of how any E.D. problem is solved? I’ve no clue!

Anyways, so bachelor of engineering (B.E.) happened and I was in a muddy puddle half way through it. In B.E., E.D. was a common subject in first year for every branch. The majority of students had never faced a subject like this all through their schooling years. They would go into permanent sleep-state or would develop coma towards this subject by the time 1st chapter (straight lines) finished. So here I was, failure in every subject like always, but a source of help that almost everyone needed when it came to E.D. I taught batch-mates, seniors and juniors and helped them all clear it with flying colors. Up until the point of year loss and fighting with depression, I was doing this on charity basis. Obviously. But now I decided to charge a fees and approach it in a more structured and professional way. The first ever paying students had already arrived, although just 2. I charged a meager fees, very tiny compared to what engineering tuitions cost. It was a success. These two kids went tooting my horn like no one had before.

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I was back to college. Shifted back to the rented room at the lovely old couple’s bungalow. And started taking ED tuitions. I was an extreme foul mouth. There would be no single sentence that I could speak without a swear word. Thus the only admission criteria to my class was that it had to be a male student. I had 8 in this batch. I quadrupled the fees, and that fees stayed as is for ever. They too cleared the paper with flying colors. Word spread out pretty good. Each one of those kids spoke to 20 to 50 others about how I taught E.D. I never used a textbook in my teaching. I would make them memorize the set of rules that was necessary for solving any E.D. problem. And then train them how to visualize. I would cook questions on my own. Based on each kid’s understanding I would custom make questions on the fly till he understood well and was ready to go next level.

The next semester was my 6th. And I now had roughly 20 kids spread across 2 batches, one in morning and other in eve. Fate had decided something special for me. A junior who belonged to my hometown was pretty close to me. He along with one of his best friend had reached their final attempt for ED, failing which they would suffer a year loss. He wanted to join my class, but wanted to come along with his friend, who being a girl I had to turn down. For next 2 weeks, he stalked me and I was adamant not having a girl in class. He didn’t take No for an answer and I finally had to give in. I agreed and conducted a separate class for just the two. Learning E.D. wasn’t that tough for them, but speaking neat for hour and half was damn horrifying and difficult for me. By the end of course, they surprised me with the the fact that I could speak neat if need be! That opened new doors. We all cleared all our papers.

The next semester too went with equal success. I had roughly 35 kids this time and my teaching got extremely polished. I finished my 3rd year and my batch-mates finished their B.E. I had 1 more year to go. One of my batch-mate friend decided to open a coaching center for Engineering 1st year students instead of going for corporate job. I decided to join him as the E.D. teacher. And with the removed gender constraint, I gained much bigger access to needy students. Plus the girl who made this happen later became my wife! Fate, as i said.

The dude rented a massive 3 BHK flat, equipped it with good quality furniture and white boards and plenty markers. The coaching center was ready and started. This semester I had 80 students spread over the morning and evening batches. I had a ball of a time. I would wake up at 6 every day, freshen up fast, get ready and reach the center to start class at 7 am. Class would last till 8, with Q&A stretched over another 15–20 mins and then students would leave to reach college by 9. And for evening it would be 6 to 7 pm in similar fashion. Imagine this:

• I wake up at 6, go to the class, teach kids while having a laughing riot (not kidding, not exaggerating at all) for an hour or more.
• go college and do nothing related to studies, have usual college-life-shit-fun.
• come back by early evening, change, go to the class, teach + have a laughing riot again for an hour or more.
• hit the mess, usual shit fun after that with friends, late night chit chat or watch movie or some other shit fun and fall dead asleep by 1 or 2 am.
• repeat!

I had this life going on for 1 year, the final year, with worries of future and job, but having gala time. I was living the richest life I have lived till this date. Yes! my richest life to present date.

Ignoring the textbook wasn’t the only uniqueness, but also how I spoke to the class made a lot of buzz. It was raw to say the least. I would make a ton of jokes, mock myself and mock everyone in the class. We all would laugh crazy at each other, but everyone was focused. I would even use swear words but the swearing was creatively done. Meaning, I would say something silly that sounded exactly like the swear word, e.g. ‘you mother feather!’ Everybody including the gals would know exactly what I meant but nobody took offense, except a few for sure. The kids who didn’t like it at the beginning, accepted after a month. Because engineering colleges were notorious for bad mouthing. It is a norm to speak filthy in college life, at least it used to be back in early 2000. So every fresher would take their own time to settle, because up until this point most of us were all neatly spoken, well brought up, homely kids. There was this kid who hated me for speaking double meaning in class. He left. Probably went to other teacher/s, I never asked. And joined back after a month’s gap. We became good friends later, like most of the rest class. None of the students felt like they were being taught by a professor. They knew I was still in my college years. And they experienced me as one among them. We all were friends, except that I was their E.D. teacher too.

Photo by Raghav Modi on Unsplash

Word spread out like fire. A ton of students across colleges in the city came to know about this lean, short, dark guy who spoke double meaning, made a ton of jokes and taught E.D. without referring to any book ever. No matter if the student was slow in understanding or joined the batch late, they all finished syllabus before exams. And cleared the paper with very decent scores at the minimum. There were cases when new students would show up just 15 days prior to exam. I would conduct separate classes in late evenings and would teach just 3 chapters thoroughly and they would pass. I humbly want to add that I’m in no way boasting anything here, just sharing the truth as simply put as possible. And trying to give you details on what living in heaven was like. While the rest of college kids were doing random stuff (that they ought to), I was slogging 6 am to late night 6 days a week. It was too much fun for me to do anything else.

By the next semester (8th & the last), all this word of mouth generated enough heat to steam out an earning I couldn’t have imagined in the wildest of dreams. I hail from a very middle class family. My parents sent me 3k per month for all conceivable expenses a student would need. It fell short every month, because of contribution-parties, booze, compulsive urge for junk food to avoid canteen suppers, and similar important expenses you see? I was charging 2k for the entire E.D. syllabus per student. My commission to the friend who ran the institute was 30%. And in this last semester, I taught more than 140 students, plus roughly 30 last minute crash course holders. Even if you hate math, you can guess that I was the self made Uncle Scrooge of Engineering years, swimming in cash even with just 70% of total coming to my pocket. It came to a point that I was splurging money hand over fist on everything and everyone that caught my attention (except drugs and hookers!).

The life I lived in the final 18 months of college is a saga worth telling. Though the decades spent before that in penance is a different story. This here is the 50% of all that I was blessed with, in those 18 months. The remaining 50% was respect (gained through authority), love affair, friendships, miracles (literally!) and what not. That’s for another post if at all you are interested :)

Now! Coming to conclusions, here’s a tiny list of things that I can mention as possible takeaways for all of us:

• When your time arrives, you will live heavenly life even without lifting a finger. Well, whatever you do will feel like you are only playing!
• You may have to go through horribly long trenches of treacherous hell before that time arrives.
• If your life has been going on alright with only small difficulties, you are already in heaven. Just that, it might not be exciting or thrilling enough to sound unbelievable.
• Whether you are in hell right now or heaven, it will end. Also, there will always be a sequel! Till your life drops to a single beep on the pulse monitor, this cycle will continue.
• There might be times when ending your life might seem to be a better option than waiting for heaven. Only caveat is that its not a worth option. Especially if you got people who care for you…. even if that is just 1 person!
• Lastly : To get, you’ve to give. What you get will be equivalent to the value you give. If you give something valuable to a bunch of people and continue doing so for long, you will reach the ‘Uncle Scrooge swimming in cash’ stage for sure! Also, you will gain love, respect and tremendous validation.
• Bonus : If you are short on self-confidence, then your subject of interest might be the savior. Find something that you absolutely own or love. And share that with the world in your own voice, don’t try to be someone else famous. For e.g., you may not be a botany student or even a trained gardner, but you may have the capacity to listen to trees and plants. And thus you may know a ton of subtle tricks that can be information worth gold, for avid plant lovers. It might just be the beginning of your journey to becoming Uncle Scrooge.

If you feel like talking about anything mentioned in here from failure to depression to Engineering Drawing to college life to lover-wife, feel free to write to me at bimalenator@gmail.com.