In 1997, I did an intensive two-month long training program at Sydenham College in Bombay on my method of doing drama. This culminated in two productions. One of them was performed by Sydenham at every inter-collegiate cultural festival across the country for the next three years, and won a prize every single time! It also launched two young stars - Aditya Hitkari and Madhuri Sarda.
The emotional rewards of teaching were fantastic, and I started plotting and planning to move into this field.
But courage comes slowly...
I started doing more and more workshops and sessions every chance I got - for colleges, schools, management associations, non-profit organisations, friends, bookstores, anywhere! I ran sessions on theatre, voice, movement, acting, creative writing, dancing, management, advertising, films, sound, and on living! The passion didn't fade but increased exponentially. I spent most of 2003 doing workshops!
Then I decided to make a little money out of this.
The call centre /BPO / ITES sector had opened up, and I was suddenly meeting lots of voice and accent trainers - mostly college kids or housewifes or white people whose accents were mostly atrocious, grammar almost non-existent, and people skills at the level of a first-grade teacher! And they were getting paid large sums of money to torture people into trying to imitate Americans and Brits. Things came to a head when I met a pretty young thing who said to me "I'm a trainer, luv..." in a stronger accent than most Indians. Of course, it came from Britain, but was being white the only precursor to a career as a trainer?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes. If you're white or have spent a couple of years in America, Britain, Australia, or the International Airport at Sahar, you can become a trainer of English grammar, voice and accent.
So it wasn't difficult for me to get a job! I joined AOL in Bangalore, where thankfully they didn't force Indians to speak in horrible fake drawls with the "r's" all rolling and the t's all sounding like d's. I trained culture, voice, accent, grammar, communication, telephone skills, sales and customer retention skills, and cross trained everything I was given a chance to. Some things never change! I stayed with AOL for two years, another record!
I received Telephone Doctor certification, did an intensive course in intercultural and English Training at Tucker International in Boulder, Colorado, and compelted my CELTA (Cambridge University's certification in adult teaching). For the first time in my life, I'm armed with an array of official-sounding certificates and credentials. (Grin) I had to start sometime!
I rediscovered a love for history and found, to my surprise, that most grammar and communication problems between India and Western countries stem not from language, but from terrifyingly different cultural and attitudinal habits. Sure, I can teach them to speak clearly and correctly. probably better than anybody else in the business, but is that really going to help?
So I moved into the sphere of management, behavioural and attitude training - and worked with many clients, some of the largest organisations in the world, and discovered that the key problem, as with everything in life, is the belief in quick fix solutions ans formulas for success. In the words of one training manager "we're just applying band-aid!"
And so I ended my post retirement plan, realising that the adventure was done and it was time to come out of retirement and go back to what I do best - making films! :-D