A retired teacher, now 76, who would play the drums and the guitar in college bands back in his student days at IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta, has formed a choir with a group of first-generation learners.
Anjan Raichaudhuri has selected a team and is training them to not just sing but also perform on stage with confidence.
Raichaudhuri spent years teaching management but he looks forward to his weekly interactions with these children who, he said, “are interested and spontaneous”.
Raichaudhuri, who taught business marketing and entrepreneurship, thinks it is important to empower people from underprivileged backgrounds.
“I’m only playing a small role,” he said. “Merely a cog in the wheel.”
When training the children of the NGO Calcutta Social Project, Raichaudhuri tries to give a slightly different perspective to the music.
In a 30-minute performance, the children sing a medley of songs, from Dhana dhanya pushpa bhora to Jamaica farewell, the popular Sri Lankan song Manike mage hite to folk songs like Lal paharir deshe ja.
“I try to make it cosmopolitan so that the world becomes slightly larger for them.... We are still in the initial stages,” said Raichaudhuri.
The choir performs at a programme during the festive season. Raichaudhuri is on the synthesizer
“With guidance, there are so many people who can excel.” Raichaudhuri divides his time between teaching management skills to the staff at Calcutta Social Project and training the children in music.
In the management class, too, the students are very different from the ones he has seen in his teaching career.
Many here are from less privileged backgrounds. Their keenness to learn has struck a chord with Raichaudhuri.
“The children are much more interested and the need is much more here.... If I compare my teaching career at the IITs and IIM Calcutta, there is a qualitative difference.
This personally appeals to me much more,” said Raichaudhuri. Raichaudhuri studied chemical engineering at IIT Kharagpur and MBA at IIM Calcutta.
He went on to teach at IIM Calcutta. Initially, he would teach business marketing as a visiting faculty. Later, he became an adjunct professor, teaching students entrepreneurship. Raichaudhuri was associated with IIM Calcutta till 2019.
For students at IITs and IIMs, the priority is to get a fat-pay job and for the children who are his pupils now, “it is the joy of learning and putting to practice what they have acquired”, Raichaudhuri said.
“Being able to shape their minds and seeing them blossom gives great satisfaction. You understand the impact is much more when you see behavioural changes in them.”
For an organisation like Calcutta Social Project, it is not only donations that count but also the engagement of distinguished people.
The NGO has been working with children, women and senior citizens for over 50 years. The experience and guidance of people like Raichaudhuri benefit the children who gain not only in terms of skills but also confidence, said Arjun Dutt, president, Calcutta Social Project.
The choir has already done a couple of performances. Several more are lined up. “Our belief is that people will invite our children to perform for their skills and not because of sympathy,” said Dutt.