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About Lakshmi
Since 29 February 2012, I have been helping children aged 4–17 build strong thinking skills — first at My Den, and today as Reachh Shubhodya — through Abacus, Vedic Maths, Phonics, Handwriting Improvement and Kalfun. Since 2017, I have also trained teachers to deliver these programs.
Before teaching, I spent nearly two decades in publishing and educational content — as a sub-editor at Star of Mysore, in book publishing at Prism Books, developing English grammar content for the Karnataka Government's EDUSAT program, and heading content quality at an e-learning company. I am also co-author of A Time for India (Vantage Press, New York, 2006; second edition, Baby Books, 2023).
That background shapes how I teach: clear structure, carefully designed materials, and steady progress for every child.
In February 2012, I left my corporate career to work with children, and that same month I founded My Den as a franchisee of a Mumbai-based company. There I trained as a Course Instructor in Abacus, Handwriting Improvement and Vedic Maths — initially so I could teach my own children. The centre was renamed Skills Centre for Excellence in 2016, when it was featured in The Times of India, and became Reachh Shubhodya at the end of 2017. Until 2019, I added two new programs each April, including Phonics, Rubik's Cube, and the T-20 Multiplication Tables program.
Alongside teaching, I attended multiple advanced trainings in these programs to improve my delivery, so that each student's progress grew significantly — with wonderful results. Word-of-mouth referrals continue to this day.
Over the years, I have trained Course Instructors in Abacus, Handwriting Improvement, Vedic Maths, Kalfun and Phonics. With a strong team of trainers, we have also taught Abacus, Handwriting Improvement and Vedic Maths at various schools, as part of the curriculum or as an activity.
I ran multiple centres in Bengaluru from 2013 at Electronics City, Harappanahalli (Koppa Gate), Jayanagar, J P Nagar, besides the main centre at Panduranganagar, where I started in 2012 (all these at preschools or schools), and moved to my own rented commercial space at Arekere Mico Layout, Bannerghatta Road area, in 2016 (Skills Centre for Excellence).
The centre ran offline from 2012 until 13 March 2020, when the first lockdown began. I then moved fully online, starting online classes in July 2020, and launched the Kalfun Tool program in online mode. Today I teach Abacus and Vedic Maths online to students in India and abroad, and train teachers in Abacus, Vedic Maths, Phonics, Handwriting Improvement and Kalfun.
Online classes have also proved more productive than my physical centre. Offline, our Abacus students typically completed 2–2.5 pages in a two-hour session. Online, in a one-hour session, students comfortably complete 2–4 pages — and sometimes 5–6.
During my time with the franchise, my abacus students participated in state-level, national-level, and international abacus and mental math competitions in India and abroad, and won the top 3 prizes in all the events, including the international competitions in 2014 and 2016.
Many students have won the top prizes in the Handwriting competition at the state and the national level. Based on my students' prize-winning performance, I was awarded the Best Course Instructor Award for four consecutive years, between 2013 and 2017.
Our students have also participated in international Rubik's Cube competitions.