Smallville

Most people like to spend their weekends relaxing, watching movies, partying or traveling out of the city. Once upon a time when I had a life, I would also do these things. But now, since I have a computer and no life, I do random stuff like looking up on the internet for interesting career options, mostly start-ups. Which is how I came across this interesting concept of Wunderbarkidz, which is essentially a start-up pre-school with a twist, i.e. it focuses on kids between 1-6 years to help them communicate in English and think in English. Located in far-flung parts of Maharashtra (with some in suburban Mumbai), it targets middle class or lower middle class families, where the exposure to English is minimal.

Now, I have already talked about my English speaking woes as a child in this post, and given the struggle I went through over the years to express myself in the Queen’s Language, I instantly connected with the idea. Not only that, I made an effort to write to the founders (two surprisingly young brothers from Insead and Dukes) who immediately got back to me and thus I traveled half-way across the city to New Bombay on a Sunday afternoon to meet them.

I had no idea what I could possibly gain from the meeting, nor did I have any specific agenda in my mind, but it was fascinating to listen to their story, the challenges they face, the grass root reality of starting a new venture, especially when it touches children from under privileged circumstances: despite their urban metropolitan upbringing, their Ivy-league education and their completely elite backgrounds, they were surprisingly grounded, surprisingly in sync with the reality that plagues our education system and surprisingly down-to-earth in their vision.

And there I was, like a little girl, looking down at the ground, identifying with a cause close to my heart, but unsure about how to deal with it…