Is State HSC topper really a Chate topper?

MUMBAI, MAY 30: Classroom learning rarely prepares impressionable young minds for the cut and thrust of the real world. Not even state HSC...

MUMBAI, MAY 30: Classroom learning rarely prepares impressionable young minds for the cut and thrust of the real world. Not even state HSC topper, Madan Bibhishan Nagargoje, especially when the villain of the piece is Chate Coaching Classes.

The boy, who was felicitated by Chate at a glittering function at Mumbai’s Shanmukhananda Hall on Tuesday, was all aflutter when he was asked who his mentor was in the run-up to the gruelling Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination. Asked by mediapersons about a letter he is said to have recently given his principal categorically dissociating himself from any coaching class, he nervously replied that the he would “look into the matter”. The question, which one young Nagargoje least expected, came plum in the middle of his felicitation speech during which he gushed on about Chate Coaching Classes. He had ironically only just described the coaching class — which along with others have been ruthlessly criticised for taking students out of the classroom — as a gyanmandir. “I will not be able to cleanse the bhrashtachar from the whole country, I will at least ensure whatever I do, is ethical.”

When Nagargoje was asked whether his principal was lying about the letter, he negated saying he will “look into the matter”. Obviously squirming by now, the teenager significantly did not deny having written the letter to his principal. Insiders say Vivekananda College, Kolhapur, had invested a lot of time and energy in the boy’s performance and was in high dudgeon after the HSC results were announced and got wind that Chate would usurp the credit for Nagargoje’s success.

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Chate, whose advertisements on the front pages of newspapers sports the pictures of toppers, has stirred controversy before when it was alleged that some of these students were not members of the institute but were rewarded for endorsing its “ability to churn out toppers”.

Gracing the dais today were senior politicians like Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, party leader Pramod Navalkar and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde. Predictably, they were all praise for the coaching cllass owner, Macchindra Chate. Awash with glowing tributes, Chate chose the platform to announce a soon-to be launched coaching class for IAS aspirants so that students from Maharashtra could top this prestigious examination too!

Munde was so moved by Nagargoje’s words that he observed: “Not only did the boy get proper guidance for the examination… more importantly, he received acha sanskriti from the coaching class,” said the senior politician.

Known for his ready wit, Navalkar said he wished he could have had such opportunities during his time too. May be he would have landed a better career!

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It seems Thackeray too couldn’t get enough of Chate, saying the institute was so successful because Chate works “dil se” rather than for commercial gain. Why then did the cheque (and shawl) given to Nagargoje at the end of the function leave mediapersons wondering…

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