Besides VK Bansal, there was yet another person who helped to make Kota the Mecca for engineering aspirants. A child of 12 and VK Bansal’s first student.
The child who VK Bansal tugged from playgrounds and tennis courts to
tutor. The child who bore out to Bansal
that he could teach and all was not lost to muscular dystrophy.
This child Punit Pandey is 48
years old today and Executive
Vice-President at 9Xmedia.
“As a child, I was typically
naughty and didn’t quite enjoy studying and that’s how it all started,” Punit
told PaGaLGuY. Punit’s parents were worried about his academics and VK Bansal
offered to teach. That’s how the phenomenon called coaching started in Kota.
For a while, Punit was Bansal’s
first and only student and was tutored in Maths and Physics. “Later my brother Nishith and another friend
joined us,” Punit remembers.
At first Bansal taught at
Punit’s home, much to the child’ horror. “Typical like boys of my age, I didn’t
really enjoy studying. So Bansal uncle used to come to the playground or the
tennis court and drag me from there.”
After a while, when VK
Bansal’s muscular dystrophy began getting a little severe, classes were shifted to the professor’s house and
at his dining table. “It was an informal atmosphere. Bansal’s wife was like a
mother to us and loved having us over. But Uncle Bansal was strict when it came
to teaching us.”
Slowly, the number of
students increased and before time, there was a huge number of them flocking Bansal’s home.
“My grades definitely changed
and that was good enough for my parents. Similar was the case with other
students, so more students joined us,” said Puneet.
Then, all the students were from
JK Synthetics colony since their parents
worked in the company plant, just like VK Bansal.
In true Bansal style, students took exams every Friday.
“We knew that our answer sheets would be stacked at Uncle Bansal’s
home so Saturday morning when Uncle was away at work, we used to go to his
house and quietly change our answers. One day we got caught,”
recalls Punit.
That day hell broke loose for
the boys but the lecture that Bansal gave them post the incident, is still
vivid in Punit’s mind. “Mr Bansal used
to cane us but that day he explained to us the meaning of education and honesty, and how both that would get us far in life. He explained how it is important to
do difficult things in life to race ahead than find the easier way out.”
Ironically, Punit did not go
on to become an engineer, nor did his brother (who is a Director at McDonald’s). But somewhere both the brothers,
for being Bansal student no 1 and 2 owe their life journeys to VK Bansal. “The
man who taught us the importance of gaining a good foundation to do whatever
else one desired in life later.”
Read here the story of VK Bansal, The man who made Kota the Mecca for engineering student.