Ramakrishna Math Language Classes

Three times every year, you see serpentine and raucous queues on the Indira Park - Chikkadpally road. They start at 4am outside counters that open at 9am. Now however bored people are, they usually do not randomly stand in a queue. Even in Mumbai. Yes, these queues are for a very specific reason - they are for some ridiculously low-priced high-quality language classes.

If you are wondering what got the Ramakrishna Math into this, well, the Ramakrishna Math believes that languages are a way of juxtaposing yourself into the cultures and thoughts of various societies and nations. It must be true if they say so. The institute imparts courses in seven languages - English, Hindi, Sanskrit, French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Chinese. The first session of courses starts in mid-January, with the second and third sessions starting in July and mid-October respectively.

Each session is of a duration of three months, which translates into some 40 classes. The classes are held three times a week on alternate days, Sunday being a holiday. The classes are for two hours and are held in the mornings and the evenings - 8am to 10am and 6pm to 8pm. However, the classes for Spanish, Japanese, Sanskrit and Hindi are only held in the evenings.

The prerequisites for the spoken English classes are slightly different, with the entire course comprising of 4 levels, and each level's duration being three months, which is approximately 80 hours.

Matters of quality and integrity are irrelevant as the teachers here adhere to a very strict form of moral conduct. The fees for the courses are, like we said, incredibly low - Rs. 500 for German, Chinese, French, Spanish and Japanese, Rs. 250 for Hindi, and Rs. 300 for Spoken English and Sanskrit.

So take the righteous road, the one on lower Tank Bund, and earn the benefits of education, the way it was meant to be earned.