Wombat is such a kindly soul, he has just offered to show me the tricks of The Trade. It probably involves a few field trips and a copious supply of fine wine and classy dining all paid for by my AMEX card.

 

 

This reminds me of the time I learned typewriting (What a detour! Wonder if anyone can top my effectiveness in turning dating talk into the clunky chatter of manual typewriters.Oh well, I guess a  little bit of flashback is in order)

 

I was in 11th grade in one of the famed high schools in the city. Given that private high schools are run for profit in the true capitalist spirit, the owner-cum-ruler strategized a new strategy - start a typewriting institute and charge the unskilled dead-end types moolah for what was essentially, even in early 90's, an inconsequential and somewhat useless skill. Now I'm not saying that Wombat is trying to sell the world something entirely useless, but the part about the unskilled dead-end types and charging moolah still hold..But I digress. Back to my exciting story..

 

For very obscure reasons usually involving bribes to government officials at several levels, starting a typewriting institute ain't easy. First you have to buy typewriters and find a large room to put them. You also need desks and chairs, not to mention A4 size white-papers. Being a high school, they already had all this "infrastructure" (I'm slowly starting to figure out why the hell they could charge such large sums of tuition.. sheesh!). The room was called "exam room" or something (because the exams were typed and cyclostyled there). Now the next step is to apply to an obscure government department for permission to start the above said institute, and probably give the said government officer some 'gifts'. Of course, this was easy and lo and behold, our typewriting institute had begun. But wait! Something was amiss! Oh, they needed students.

 

Governmnet rules exist to make government employees rich so their families could flourish and prosper. This is public service in its purest form, for the government employees are the public. The first round of appeasement only gets you a learners license. To get a permanent one, you've got to prove your mettle (and give some more gifts). That is, the Institute (notice the capital 'I') had to train a minimum number of candidates successfully in the mystic art of typing the typewriter and pass the government conducted test at the end of one year. The government would then consider the Institute worthy of permanent existence and issue a permanent license. The trouble was that there were no students.

 

The headmistress figured she could draft a few idiots like me into the Institute. We were all entering the Computer Age and really needed to learn to type (Of course she was right. I'm blind-typing this blog right now. But I don't think she was truly after my betterment. It was the AMEX that mattered..  ). But no, we wouldn't take the bait. I knew one-finger-typing just fine, and most of my classmates were supremely indifferent to her pleas and all the inventive coaxing and cajoling. It was more important to us to keep our cash than learn a useful skill. We'd probably even have paid those Rupees happily to a different typewriting institute, but wisdom (read 'crystallized pain') had tought us that light never comes out of black holes... and we all knew we were already studying in one!

 

Finally, 'they' decided to throw good money after bad money. To protect their investment in the first-year-trial-license, the Institute fees were subsidized and we were even told that the school would pay the exam fees and we'd all get free tutoring and a Government certificate at the end of it all. Now anything that spells f-r-e-e was too good to let go, so we fell for it. One year later, we wrote (typed!) the exams. I even typed the exam for my pal in the next seat. Sadly for him, I was using a different brand of typewriter, so he probably flunked the exam because the examiners were adept (a rare thing really!) at noticing the difference in the fonts. I never got my certificate though, mostly because I'd left town for good and never did bother to collect it. I didn't care much because I knew to type - and that that is all that really mattered.

 

The Institute never took off, I think because the skills involved could be self-taught easily and didn't matter much in the long run anyway. It is so much like conversation skills. It only matters until find a chikca. After you land a catch, you don't have to talk much, and only do the listening.

 

Also there was tuition fee involved, and noboby likes to pay. There was also this matter of reputation of the Institute. It was such a pity nobody but the people running the Institute thought they were any good!

 

So Wombat, what do you think should be your key takeaway from this story? I think it should be pretty clear by now that to start a successful school, you first need to find students, and then offer them free lessons. If you are really good, they will spread the word and you'll become rich in the second year!

 

 

 Update (9 pm) --

 

Wombat's response: