After working as a manager at Central Bank of India all his life, at 52, S. Gopalakrishnan resigned from his position to start his own business as an insolvency professional. It was a bold decision: his daughter was in Class XII and his son in Class VIII. His colleagues told him he was crazy. But bolstered by his wife, who had a steady government job, he took the leap from salaried employee to business professional. That’s when he started taking grooming classes with Maya Daswani in Mumbai, and the results were transformative.

“My thought process was, I need to learn how to deal with clients, how to put myself out there,” he recalls. He ended up learning a lot more than that. It started with professional tips and tricks such as how to walk into a room, what shirt to wear, and where to keep your hands while sitting. But soon, they were learning the correct way to stand when at the urinal, the importance of removing body hair to prevent sweat stains, and how to give hugs (where to pat, for how long, etc.).

S. Gopalakrishnan

Gopalakrishnan noticed a slew of changes in himself after the course: for instance, he used to wear multi-coloured shirts; now he wears only light-coloured ones. Earlier, he was loud and used lengthy sentences; now he speaks succinctly. Some of the exercises came as a surprise: such as walking in the verandah with books balanced on his head. Or an elaborate lesson in fine-dining at the Cricket Club of India. But by the end of his classes in 2018, he truly felt like he had learnt the art of life.

Appearance over substance?

In a new social-media savvy world of appearance over substance, image is everything. From rumours that Prime Minister Narendra Modi used a range of consultants to mould his image from right-wing fringe politician to international leader, to Sobhita Dhulipala’s character Tara in the Amazon Prime Video series Made In Heaven, whose learnings at Princess Grooming School catapulted her from middle-class obscurity to the wife of a millionaire, our society is dotted with the successes of personal and professional grooming.

A number of schools, institutes and consultants are stepping in to cater to an increasingly wide range of needs and necessities of the aspirational and upwardly-mobile. Though there is no official record of the number of personality development schools across the country, a cursory search reveals around 3,668 results for English classes in New Delhi alone, many of which offer broader personality development.

These ‘grooming schools’ list a wide range of services, from make-up, skincare and hair styling courses, to English for corporate professionals, body language training, and personality development. In these spaces, you’ll find an assortment of people rubbing shoulders: cosmetology students looking to become beauty influencers; first-generation corporate professionals trying to impress their bosses and lead their teams effectively; students preparing to travel abroad for education; and homemakers learning to fit into society.

Teaching table etiquette at Confianza

These are all soft-skills that are a prerequisite to making it in the modern world, but for which the formal education system rarely prepares you. If you’ve got them, chances are they came to you via heredity or money or privilege. Or perhaps you picked them up mimicking people around you. For the rest, these ‘grooming schools’ are, above all, equalisers, offering skills needed to thrive in today’s globalised economy. They are the face of aspiration in modern India.

Make a start with English

The origin of finishing schools can be traced back to late 19th century Europe. The concept was simple: to teach upper-class ladies the social graces and etiquette to thrive in high society. These schools were exclusively for women, and served the purpose of making attendees marriage-ready. There are still a few hyper-elite finishing schools in India, such as Konkana Bakshi’s Savoir Faire Academie in Mumbai, where a single private consultation costs anywhere between ₹4 lakh and ₹6 lakh; or ‘empress of etiquette’ Sabira Merchant, who has trained actresses such as Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta (attending a day-long seminar costs ₹14,750 per person). However, the grooming schools proliferating the Indian landscape today are long-estranged descendants of these — having metamorphosed from hyper-elite institutions to more democratic ones. They now also have an increasingly high number of men among their ranks.

Lessons in fine dining

Nowhere is this more evident than in modern-day English speaking classes. A former HR and marketing professional, Sushil Kumar Yadav is an English trainer at E-Guroo in Gurugram, which offers spoken English classes, soft skills development and other employability skills. Sitting in his glass cubicle, Yadav, in his flawless English, tells me, “We strongly believe no one comes to us to learn English. They come to us to become habitual speakers of English.” According to a 2010 paper by the Institute for the Study of Labour Economics, people who speak fluent English earn 34% more than those who don’t.

He explains how all their efforts are directed towards making English your “emotional language”, i.e., the language of your most intimate thoughts. For instance, one of his class exercises involves narrating the story of your first break-up in English; another consists of a “gossiping-session” in English, which, he says, helps a lot of first-time corporate professionals fit into their workplace and make friends.

Apart from language, he also teaches his students about the importance of body language and confidence. “Take Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Modi. One of them speaks flawless English, but no one takes him seriously. Another doesn’t speak English so well, but he exudes confidence. Everyone listens when he speaks,” says Yadav. Over the years, he has taught a wide variety of students, from Station House Officers who joined because their inspector general spoke English, to school teachers who had taught English for more than 25 years but still couldn’t speak it for more than 10 minutes.

Your image is important

If Sugandha Mittal of Chennai’s Confianza Finishing School were to tally the numbers, every month she gets more men coming to her than women. Apart from its regular courses, Confianza has a session called ‘Perfectly Polished’ for gentlemen and bridegrooms, where they learn everything from how to respect boundaries, to the latest haircuts, ideal body weight and BMI. It’s unsurprising that Mittal gets plenty of men who are preparing to meet their life partner. “The folks at home say it’s time to get married, but they have inhibitions about speaking to the opposite gender. That’s when they come to me,” she says.

Sugandha Mittal of Confianza

The sheer scope of grooming schools today is gargantuan. They can offer professional skill development just as easily as they can therapeutic healing. Daswani’s Persona Power Finishing School (that Gopalakrishnan attended) is located in a ground-floor walk-in bordered by greenery in South Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade. Speaking to Daswani is like stepping into an older, more refined world, where maids are called ‘helpers’, and I’m called ‘young lady’. Apart from the regular personality development classes, she has special modules on life-skills mastery, stress and anger management, and family etiquette. Her group classes, conducted once a week, cost anywhere from ₹20,000 to over ₹1 lakh a month.

Maya Daswani teaching a financial analyst to write confidently with his head up

One of her most recent students, Akshay Jain, 34, had a troubled relationship with his family, and the effects of it seeped into his life. “I changed a lot, I became very anxious. If I went out in social settings and there was a crowd of people, I would take out my phone and try to avoid eye contact,” recalls Jain. After a few therapy sessions, he decided to try something different. He looked up a variety of personality development classes, and settled on Daswani’s. “I just needed to break this anxious cycle I was in.”

He recalls how at first, Daswani wasn’t the biggest fan of his personality. She thought he was easily distracted, had no mindfulness, and didn’t like his long, unruly hair. “We were always having arguments, but in a good way,” laughs Jain. But after a month of classes on how to speak, how to act in public, Jain felt liberated. He started frequenting new places and restaurants, and instead of feeling awkward, struck up conversations with strangers who became friends. On a recent Goa trip with some friends of friends, he says, “It was very easy for me to converse, make jokes and just be myself. Armed with these lessons, I hope to succeed in my future goals — mentorship, empathy and better work delegation.” Feeling freer by learning societal mores and rules may seem counter-intuitive, but is repeated by a lot of grooming school adherents.

Akshay Jain

“The moment we step out of our house, we’re being judged,” says Bengaluru-based image consultant and personal stylist Meghna Khanna. Many of her clients tend to be power women in their 40s. “They have enough money, overflowing wardrobes, they’re working; but still, they have doubts and anxieties,” she says. That’s where her role as a ‘secret stylist’ comes in — ‘secret’ because most of these women don’t want anyone knowing they consult an external expert. “You must understand, it’s very intimate. I’m landing up in somebody’s bedroom, they’re getting ready. Their partner is there, I’m witnessing their dynamic,” she says, emphasising how her role often veers from stylist to therapist, soothing women’s deepest anxieties. Her charges vary, from ₹3,000 for a group session to ₹10,000 for an individual one.

Meghna Khanna conducts a session

If given a choice, Khanna would much rather hold massive rallies in stadiums. “Imagine if we got a corporate sponsor like Nykaa to come on board — we could spend the whole day teaching women personal etiquette, perhaps a seminar on skincare and make-up, and an hour-long meditation session. The benefits would be truly all-pervasive.”

Personality as teachable material

Then there are those who are introduced to grooming schools through the social-media savvy world of beauty and fashion. Name the skill and 27-year-old Mehnaz Sahin has done a course in it. She’s completed a slew of LinkedIn modules in Business Etiquette, Communicating with Emotional Intelligence and Social Media Marketing. She’s done ‘Fashion and Personal Styling’ from London School of Trends; ‘Instagram 101’ with Ranveer Allahbadia aka BeerBiceps; and in December, she’ll be doing a personality development course at the Sanjeev Datta Personality School. All because, like her idols, fashion and beauty influencers Nitibha Kaul and Aashna Shroff, she wants to become an influencer.

Mehnaz Sahin

A dentistry student from Kolkata, Sahin started dabbling in self-care during the pandemic. She spent hours on skin care, make-up and beauty rituals, and was soon posting about it. So, why not do it as a side-hustle? She already had plans to finish dentistry and enter the cosmetology industry, eventually becoming an aesthetic physician with her own make-up brand. “But for this, I need to have my own following, my own identity,” reasons Sahin. She’s been working on “polishing her personality” ever since, which includes working on her personal presentation, public speaking, soft skills and leadership skills.

Last year, model and former Miss India finalist Aprajita Sharma started BeYou Grooming School for people like Sahin, i.e., youngsters from tier II and III towns with a lot of potential but no exposure. Originally from Chandigarh, Sharma got selected for the Miss India pageant in 2011. But when she went to Mumbai for the event, she realised how much she didn’t know. “Even though I was confident in my own city, when I came to Mumbai and met all these people from varied backgrounds, I felt small. And I realised, this is what people from small towns must feel like. Not just in terms of physical presence, but like, ‘Oh, I’ve not seen the world’.”

Aprajita Sharma of BeYou

That became one of the main reasons for Sharma to start her grooming school, which teaches beauty-pageant aspirants everything from styles of cat-walk, stage management, and communication skills, to diction and etiquette. BeYou recently organised a Miss Tricity pageant for women of Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula, where not only was there no bar on who could participate (married women, plus size women, etc.) but also contestants got a week of grooming classes before the walk.

The grooming schools of today have come a long way from those of the 90s and early 2000s, which were primarily born to train India’s booming service industry comprising call centres, software firms and hotels. The emphasis now is more on hyper-personal goals and aspirations, from wanting to impress your future life partner, to being the very best version of yourself. Globalisation has accelerated the world to such an extent that everyone is climbing the rungs of a never-ending ladder, each achievement paving the way to the next. It’s good to ‘manifest’ your goals — as long as you also know when to stop and just be content.

The writer is based in new Delhi.