A mechanical engineer, VK Bansal suffered a hereditary muscle disease with no cure and confined to a wheelchair. He took to teaching and today he has become a pioneer in the field of coaching for IIT-JEE
“I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
—Christopher Reeve
He was a mechanical engineer working for JK Synthetics Ltd, a polyester plant in Kota. In 1974 he started having trouble climbing steps; he later discovered he had muscular dystrophy, a hereditary muscle disease for which there is no cure. He was shocked when he realized that he had to be confined to a wheelchair. A local doctor warned him that death was imminent, while another more optimistic physician in London advised him to take up teaching. In 1981, he began teaching, starting with one Std VII student. Devoid of a teaching background, he was not sure whether he could teach. Today, his coaching center has eight floors that are connected by wheelchair ramps. He has become a pioneer in the field of coaching for IITJEE, with a thriving business that grosses close to a billion rupees per annum.
We are talking about VK Bansal, the founder of “Bansal Classes”. The success of Bansal Classes led to the establishment of many more coaching institutes, several of them started by Bansal’s former employees. Some even teach students how to clear the entrance exam to get into Bansal Classes. Amazingly, Kota, which at one time was famous for the Kota saree and Kota stone, has now become a hub for coaching classes.
Bansal was born in Jhansi on 26 October 1946. His family owned a sweet shop in the city. After passing high school at the top of his class, he went on to study engineering at the Banaras Hindu University, graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1971. Shortly after graduating, he married and moved to the city of Kota, Rajasthan to work as a mechanical engineer for JK Synthetics Ltd, a polyester plant that shut down in the late 1990s. It was shocking when in 1974, his efforts to get treatment for muscular dystrophy at AIIMS and many other hospitals in the country failed. “I had dreamt of becoming the chief engineer of a plant or a general manager, but things went in a totally different direction,” he says.
Within five months of starting his tutorial with just one Standard VII student, he had another student, and the next year he managed to get another. He was not sure whether he could teach engineering students. “My aim was to settle down with an income that matched what I used to draw at JK Synthetics,” says Bansal. “At first, I used to teach six students around my dining table. Then I added a few stools to make it 12.” In 1983, he met G.D. Agrawal, who ran a Mumbai-based IIT coaching institute. Agrawal motivated Bansal to do the same. From 1981 to 1991, Bansal kept himself so busy fourteen hours a day—eight hours at JK Synthetics and six hours in studying and teaching—that it left him with no spare time to think of his disability. During these ten years, he taught students of Standards X and XI, as well as students for the PET and IIT entrance. He got more confident as he coached PET students at National Coaching Institute at Kota Junction. He took voluntary retirement from JK Synthetics in 1991 and devoted himself fully to “Bansal Classes”.
One of his students got through to IIT-Roorkee in 1985, and a similar feat was achieved in 1986. Soon, Bansal found himself with more students than he could handle. “I had to devise a test to select a few whom I could teach— and we follow that practice even today,” Bansal explains. Although he cannot stand without support, he zips from classroom to classroom in a motorized wheelchair. The coaching empire represents a quantum leap for a man who began teaching one student, that too free of charge, in 1974.
“Teaching is my breakfast, lunch and dinner. In a classroom, energy also flows from the students to the teacher. Sometimes, when I am stuck over a problem, a bright student can end up teaching me. I have always kept an open mind on that”
“We were engineers working for industries,” says Pramod Bansal, CEO, Bansal Classes. “Teaching was not exactly in line with our profession. But as we had the background and aptitude it needed, we started Bansal Classes.”
Bansal teaches about 17,000 students every year, nearly 25% of whom get through to the IITs. All in all, he has taught till date some 1.5 lakh students out of which more than 20,000 have made it to the IITs. Interestingly, Bansal Classes does not market its services, instead relying on word-of-mouth publicity. It only advertises on two occasions: when the admission dates for the IIT-JEE classes are announced, and when the results of the IIT-JEE entrance exams are declared. By the late 1990s, Bansal’s students have begun to regularly figure in the top 100 of the IIT entrance test ranks.
V.K. Bansal, now 60, claims that he is worth more than $20 million—and the industry he created, along with its ancillary businesses, is worth millions more. Now he has enough money to take care of his needs, even if he quits teaching today, he asserts. But he enjoys teaching too much to do so! Requests to set up similar coaching class centers in Dubai have been pouring in, but Bansal has, so far, refused to expand his business anymore.
To gain entry to Bansal’s classes, Standard X students must have secured more than 75%marks in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. They must also pass Bansal’s entrance exam. Despite having never advertised his classes, his reputation lures students from all over India. Bansal’s classes cost Rs.40,000-50,000 per student, setting the benchmark rate across Kota, even across India. His highest paid teacher earns Rs.30 lakh annually—and Bansal gifted him a car at Diwali 2016. Bansal admits that the business model has been highly profitable, but says that that’s not what drew him to the classroom. “I have never chased money, money has chased me,” says Bansal. He credits his students with helping him outsmart the doctors’ prognosis. “In a classroom, energy also flows from the students to the teacher,” he says. “Sometimes, when I am stuck over a problem, a bright student can end up teaching me. I have always kept an open mind on that.”
Bansal has begun handing over the business’ responsibility to his children. His two daughters head offshoots of the academy in Jaipur and Ajmer, and his son helps out with the one in Kota. But Bansal says it’s too soon to retire; he has just constructed a new campus. “If I don’t teach, I will die,” he says, setting his wheelchair in motion for the next class. Today, he starts studying at 7 am, and works on practice problems until noon. After lunch, he goes to class, where he gets the answers to the problems, and gets home around 8 pm, and does homework until midnight. He has developed an intensive study system that bombards students with test questions for nine hours a day for two years.
In 2007 Bansal Classes has opened a new, bigger campus that is better equipped than some IITs and is fully wheelchair accessible for Mr Bansal, who still teaches up to five classes a day. Of course, his mobility has declined to the point where he can barely lift a pen. But he says being in a wheelchair 12 hours a day means he has more time to think of challenging questions for students. “Teaching is my breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he says.
He underwent bypass surgery and treatment of dural hematoma (bleeding in the brain). In Jan 2014 Bansal made a video narrating his life story for a seminar held in the Neurology Department of AIIMS, New Delhi. He says that he had been writing for six hours daily, because of which the muscles of his hand were still functional. Till 2012, he used to take lectures for 7-8 hours daily, because of which his lungs and heart are still functioning normally. The five hundred neurologists attending the seminar felt that it was simply miraculous. The life and work of VK Bansal is itself really a miracle that will continue to inspire millions of people in the years to come!
The above story is featured in “Unsung Heroes-Real stories to inspire you” ISBN 978-81-7108-902-4 Written By Maj (Retd) Pradeep Khare (pradeepkhare2011@gmail.com). It is published by better yourself books, Mumbai.
By Maj (Retd) Pradeep Khare
